President Trump’s immigration raids have begun — and law enforcement has Texas in its crosshairs.
Over the weekend, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement carried out a series of “enhanced targeted operations” across Texas, arresting dozens of people. The raids spanned across cities including Austin, San Antonio, Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, and the Rio Grande Valley. Each operation was part of President Donald Trump’s renewed crackdown on undocumented immigration in his second term, which began just last week.
ICE partnered with the Drug Enforcement Administration, the FBI, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to carry out the operations. According to ICE officials, these actions aimed to “enforce U.S. immigration law and preserve public safety and national security,” KXAN reported.
Raids also occurred across the country, including in Chicago, Los Angeles, Denver, Buffalo, and Atlanta.
In Austin and San Antonio, agents mobilized on Sunday, with the DEA confirming that nearly all agents from its Houston division, which oversees a wide swath of Texas, participated. It was unclear how many people were arrested. In North Texas, ICE reported the arrest of 84 individuals in cities including Dallas, Fort Worth, Irving, and Arlington, according to Texas Public Radio.
On Sunday, a Houston DEA post on X showed photos of law enforcement officers escorting a man in handcuffs through a residential area, the Texas Tribune reported.
Similar operations were conducted in the Rio Grande Valley over the weekend. According to ICE, the operations allegedly targeted “potentially dangerous criminal aliens,” ValleyCentral.com reported. While ICE did not disclose numbers or other specific details, sources indicated agents were instructed to make at least 75 arrests.
Neither ICE nor the DEA provided details on the scale of the operations, and spokespeople from the Travis and Bexar counties sheriff’s offices confirmed they were not notified in advance, the Texas Tribune reported. A spokesperson for U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, a Democrat who represents Austin, also stated that the congressman likewise did not receive prior notice of the Austin operation.
The Sunday raids occurred less than a week after President Trump began his second term, promising mass deportations and signing multiple executive orders that drew ire for being unconstitutional and outright harmful. These orders included halting an app for asylum appointments and allowing raids at sensitive locations like schools, churches, and hospitals.
The Trump administration has also directed federal officials to investigate local officials who obstruct deportation efforts. Additionally, Texas lawmakers have sought guidance on how school districts should prepare for federal immigration enforcement.
The impact on schools was especially evident in Fort Worth, where a substitute teacher at North Side High School came under investigation for social media posts inviting ICE to deport students, KERA News reported.
In one post, the teacher stated that he has “many students who don’t even speak English.” Responding to an ICE enforcement update, he wrote, “Y’all should come to Fort Worth, TX to Northside High School.”
Fort Worth ISD Interim Superintendent Karen Molinar acknowledged the uncertainty caused by recent national policy changes and stressed that the district does not inquire about the immigration status of students or their families, as student information is protected by federal privacy laws.
“We recognize that recent national changes in immigration policies may have left some families in our community feeling uncertain or concerned,” Molinar told KERA. “We are here to support all of our students, families and staff.”
Trump’s border czar Tom Homan — the architect of the cruel and deeply unpopular family separation policy from Trump’s first term — said that officials’ primary focus was on public safety and national security threats. However, he emphasized that anyone in the country unlawfully could still face arrest, even if they do not fall into these priority categories.
“There’s consequences (for) entering the country illegally,” Homan said. “If we don’t show there’s consequences, you’re never going to fix the border problem.” The administration’s actions have reignited fears among immigrant communities, especially in Texas, which is home to approximately 1.6 million undocumented individuals.
The raids have drawn sharp criticism from some who argue that these actions are unnecessarily harsh and disruptive. Doggett — among other Democrats — opposed the deportation of law-abiding residents, even as he expressed support for secure borders and the removal of criminal offenders. “Dragnets designed to remove law abiding, tax paying residents, many of whom have been here for years and are parents of American citizen children, do not make us safer; they only make our economy weaker, as much needed construction workers, health aides, and other workers are detained,” he said in a statement, per KXAN. “Authorizing armed federal immigration agents to enter churches, schools, and hospitals will only create chaos. Like his previous policy deliberately taking children from their mothers, Trump is making cruelty his principal immigration policy.”
