Texas immigration crackdown operation resulted in over 4,000 arrests, DHS says

U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin announced Thursday in Dallas that a 10-day statewide immigration enforcement operation in Texas resulted in 4,170 arrests.

The operation, called Lone Star Mission, involved partnerships between federal immigration officers and Texas sheriff’s offices and police departments. Mullin said more than 60% of those arrested had criminal backgrounds, including convictions involving murder, sexual assault, drunken driving and immigrant smuggling.

“They should have never been on our streets. We were able to make the Lone Star State safer,” Mullin said.

Flanked by Enforcement and Removal Operations field office directors from Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, El Paso and Harlingen, Mullin said the operation allowed officers to locate people they had been trying to find for some time.

“Most of these individuals are looking for, for quite some time, but we just didn’t have the resources to be able to go in and do a pattern of life on the individuals, make sure we know where they live, know where they work out,” Mullin said.

879 arrests in North Texas

Of the 4,170 arrests statewide, 879 occurred in North Texas.

One person arrested in Dallas was Orlando Aguilar, a Mexican national taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Saturday. His convictions include felony intoxication assault involving a vehicle that caused serious bodily injury and driving while intoxicated.

Mullin said officers worked with local law enforcement agencies to carry out arrests involving people with outstanding warrants.

He also said 40% of those arrested did not have criminal records. Mullin referred to those individuals as “collateral criminals,” explaining that they were not necessarily the intended targets of the enforcement actions.

“They may not been the target, but they were in the vehicle, they were in a house, or wherever the warrant was served at,” Mullin said.

Homeland Security secretary says enforcement will continue

Mullin said Texas Enforcement and Removal Operations officers took more than 136,000 criminals into custody from October 2025 through Sept. 30, 2026.

Asked whether North Texans and Americans should expect increased immigration enforcement over the next couple of years, Mullin said targeted enforcement would continue, while noting that officers are working within available resources.

“So that type of target enforcing you’re going to continue to see but we work as hard as we can with the resources we have, so increase, we’re working as hard as we can,” Mullin said.

This story was originally reported for broadcast by NBC DFW. AI tools helped convert the story into a digital article, and an NBC DFW journalist edited it again before publication.