The FBI plans to move 1,500 employees of the country’s headquarters across the country

Washington – FBI director Kash Patel announced on Friday the project to move 1,500 FBI employees outside the agency’s headquarters in Washington, calling the current building “dangerous for our workforce”.

In an interview with Fox Business, Patel has confirmed that FBI staff will be moved to various places across the country.

“The FBI is 38,000 when we are fully inhabited,” said Patel. “There were 11,000 employees. It is a third of the workforce. A third of the crime does not occur here.”

The details of the place where they could go and the rest of the FBI headquarters have not yet been published. The deputy director of the FBI retirement for counterintelligence Frank Figliuzzi is already worried.

“If you are going to lose or degrade this global view by starting to empty the functions of the head office, the question we have to ask ourselves is what is not going to do?” Figliuzzi told Wusa9. “I am very concerned about the fact that if the priorities are not identified properly, we are very vulnerable for something really bad to happen.”

This decision indicates a major change in the current debate on the future of the head office of the Bureau, a discussion which lasted several administrations and drawn up net political lines.

Under the Biden Administration, the General Services Administration (GSA) has selected Greenbelt, Maryland, as the future site of the new FBI headquarters. The decision followed a competitive selection process between Maryland and Virginia. The defenders of Prince George County underlined the potential economic stimulation that the project would bring.

The American representative Glenn Ivey (D-Maryland) said that although he accepts that the head office needs to leave the district, he underlined the need to keep the plans in the greenery belt.

“The green belt is the ready -to -use site, and it has gone through a decade of verification and we have money put aside to do so,” said Ivey.

“We have followed a rigorous competitive process,” added Aisha Braveboy, prosecutor and a Democratic candidate for the County of Prince George for the county executive. “We have a real participation in the result of this. We received this Fair and Square site. “

Even his republican opponent, Jonathan White, echoed the feeling.

“We have won the overall GSA process and that would benefit the county in many ways,” said White. “In addition, it would save taxpayers if we build here in Prince George County.”

Despite the GSA’s decision and local bipartite support, President Donald Trump spoke out against the green belt site in March.

“They were going to build an FBI seat at three o’clock in Maryland, a liberal state,” said Trump, although the site is about 30 to 60 minutes from downtown DC, depending on traffic. “We will stop it, don’t let this happen. We are going to build another large FBI building where it is. ”

Local officials responded quickly to the announcement of Friday of the patel.

“We agree with the Patel director that the current FBI headquarters in Washington, DC is not suitable for work,” said Angie Rogers, deputy deputy chief of economic development at the Alsobrook office. “The building is decrepit and dangerous … This is why the decision of the General Services Administration to build a new FBI seat in the county of Prince George was the right one.”

Rodgers pointed out that the earlier the new green belt installation would be built: “The sooner we can return employees outsourced to us and ensure that the FBI works at full power.”

Meanwhile, DC leaders are still pushing to keep the head office in the city.

“Having the FBI headquarters in the capital of our country and near the Ministry of Justice maintains more security America,” said Mayor Muriel Bowser.

She added that the district was ready to help the FBI guarantee temporary and permanent space.

With the relocation of employees already in motion and no finalized plan for a permanent headquarters, the future location of the FBI remains uncertain – resolved in a political rope with national security implications.

“We do not even know the impacts of mass dismissals of federal workers,” said County County Prince George, Krystal Oriadha. “Now, to see a large number of an entire agency leaving the region, it will be devastating for the economy.”