On Sunday, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) initiated targeted enforcement operations across Texas, fulfilling President Donald Trump’s campaign pledge to intensify immigration crackdowns.
According to a spokesperson from ICE’s Dallas Field Office, the arrests spanned multiple cities across the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex, including Dallas, Arlington, Fort Worth, Irving, Garland, and Collin County. The operations targeted illegal immigrants who had committed crimes, with 84 individuals taken into custody and processed at ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations office in Dallas.
The raids are part of a broader immigration strategy by Trump, who recently signed executive orders designating cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, ending birthright citizenship, and declaring a national emergency at the U.S.-Mexico border.
While federal officials emphasize public safety as a key goal of these operations, the increased immigration arrests have drawn criticism from immigrant advocacy groups. On Sunday, demonstrators gathered in Dallas and Fort Worth to protest the administration’s policies, voicing concerns about the impact on families and communities.
Nationwide, ICE reported 956 arrests during Sunday’s operations, according to a post on the agency’s social media platform X. The scale of these actions underscores the administration’s commitment to intensifying deportations and stricter immigration enforcement measures.
“Entering the country illegally has consequences,” said Tom Homan, border czar for the Trump administration, in an interview with ABC News. Homan noted the likelihood of “collateral arrests,” where others without legal status are detained if encountered during operations.
Critics have expressed concerns about the impact of such measures on families and communities, while the administration maintains that the actions are necessary to safeguard public safety and national security.