Bondi DOJ dropped 23,000 criminal cases to pursue immigration enforcement

Attorney General Pam Bondi's Justice Department quietly dropped more than 23,000 criminal cases in the first six months of the Trump administration, the highest monthly declination rate since at least 2004. In February 2025, Bondi's first month in office, prosecutors declined nearly 11,000 cases, compared to a previous monthly high of just over 6,500 cases in September 2019. The dropped cases spanned terrorism probes, white-collar fraud investigations including a Virginia nursing home patient abuse case and New Jersey labor union fraud probes, and nearly 5,000 drug trafficking and money laundering cases. The administration shifted resources toward immigration enforcement, opening 32,000 new immigration cases in six months, nearly triple the Biden administration's rate. ProPublica's analysis showed drug trafficking and money laundering declinations were 45% higher than the average of the prior three administrations. The DOJ also declined over 900 federal fraud cases, nearly three times the prior three administrations' average.