U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Drug Enforcement Administration conducted “targeted enforcement actions” in Austin and other cities on Sunday, the DEA Houston division confirmed.
“The DEA Houston division assisted DHS with their targeted enforcement actions. We’ve assisted in several cities to include Austin,” DEA spokesperson Sally Sparks said in a text message to KUT News.
The DEA Houston division operates in a large swath of Texas, all the way from the southern border to as far north as Waco.
The division posted photos associated with the operations on X, formerly known as Twitter, Sunday.
According to ICE, enforcement operations involve “the identification, arrest, detention and removal of aliens who are subject to removal or are unlawfully present in the United States.” KUT News has reached out to Homeland Securities Investigations for details about Sunday’s operations.
The news of ICE’s activities in Austin comes just over a week after Trump “border czar” Tom Homan said ICE would begin conducting illegal immigration enforcement raids. Homan said those raids would begin Tuesday, Jan. 21, and identified Chicago as an early target in an interview with Fox News.
“We’re going to take the handcuffs off ICE and let them go arrest criminal aliens. That’s what’s gonna happen,” Homan said.
ICE confirmed to the Texas Newsroom that operations are also underway in North Texas, where dozens of individuals were arrested over the weekend.
KXAN was first to report the news of ICE’s operations in Austin.