U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has sharply expanded its operations in Texas under the second Trump administration, with daily arrests more than doubling, new detention facilities opening across the state, deportation flights hitting record highs, and Texas law now requiring sheriffs to partner with federal agents. If you live in Texas or have family here, the practical reality is that encounters with local police, county jails, immigration courts, and even probation offices can now feed directly into ICE custody.
How Much Enforcement Has Grown
ICE arrests in Texas averaged 176 per day during the first six months of the second Trump administration, compared with 85 per day during the final 18 months of the Biden administration.1Texas Tribune. Texas Immigration ICE Arrests Raids Police More than half of those arrests originate inside county jails, which have become the primary pipeline into immigration custody.
Street-level operations have also grown larger and more visible. ICE reported deporting more than 500 people and arresting over 400 in the Houston area during a single week in May 2025. A ten-day Houston operation in October 2025 produced more than 1,500 arrests.1Texas Tribune. Texas Immigration ICE Arrests Raids Police Agents have made arrests at federal buildings in El Paso, immigration courts in San Antonio, and probation offices in Dallas.
The Justice Department has moved in parallel. Federal prosecutors in the Western District of Texas filed 735 new immigration-related criminal cases over three weeks from December 2025 to January 2026, and another 450 cases during a two-week span in June 2026, under an initiative called Operation Take Back America. The cases involve ICE working alongside Border Patrol, DEA, FBI, U.S. Marshals, and ATF.2U.S. Department of Justice. Western District of Texas Prosecutors File More Than 730 New Immigration Cases Over 3 Weeks
Governor Greg Abbott signed a memorandum of understanding with U.S. Customs and Border Protection that lets Texas National Guard soldiers perform immigration arrests, and said Guard members have been “deputized to assist ICE.” The Texas Department of Public Safety has personnel embedded with ICE on operations across the state. The governor has also sent more than 400 additional soldiers, along with C-130 aircraft and Chinook helicopters, to the border.3Office of the Texas Governor. Texas Partners With Trump Administration on Arrests, Deportations
Why Local Police and Sheriffs Are Involved
Two Texas statutes drive the cooperation between local law enforcement and ICE. Senate Bill 4, signed in 2017, bars local governments from limiting immigration enforcement. It requires agencies to honor ICE detainer requests, allows officers to ask about immigration status during lawful detentions, and requires jails to let federal agents inside.4Texas Legislature. SB 4 Bill Analysis Non-compliance can trigger civil fines up to $25,000 per day and the removal of elected officials.5Baker Institute for Public Policy. Uncertain Future of Texas SB 4
Senate Bill 8, passed during the 89th legislative session in 2025, goes further. It requires every sheriff in a county that operates a jail to request a 287(g) agreement with ICE, which deputizes local officers to perform federal immigration enforcement functions.6Texas Tribune. Texas Legislature Sheriffs ICE Agreements The statute mandates at minimum the “warrant service officer” model, which allows deputies to serve federal immigration warrants inside jails without ICE officers present. Sheriffs can also opt for the jail enforcement or task force models. The attorney general may sue sheriffs who refuse, and a grant program offsets the cost for counties that comply.7Texas Legislature. SB 8 Bill Text
As of May 2025, 72 Texas law enforcement agencies already held active 287(g) agreements. About 20 percent used the task force model, which allows officers to question people about immigration status during routine policing. The ACLU of Texas has argued the mandate diverts policing resources and raises the risk of racial profiling.8ACLU of Texas. ACLU Texas Comments on Passage of SB 8
Pressure on Houston, Dallas, and Austin
Even with the mandates, the state’s largest cities resisted, and the governor responded by threatening to pull nearly $200 million in state public safety funding.9NPR. Texas Governor Threatens to Revoke Grants From Cities That Don’t Cooperate With ICE
Houston stood to lose about $110 million. Its city council revised policy to eliminate a 30-minute wait period for ICE agents and added quarterly cooperation reports. Dallas, with more than $32 million in grants and over $55 million in FIFA World Cup-related public safety money at stake, rewrote its police guidelines to say officers would work with federal partners “as reasonable or necessary.” Austin, facing $2.5 million in grants, adopted a March 2026 policy that bans arrests based solely on civil immigration warrants and prohibits officers from “unreasonably prolonging a detention” to contact ICE. Attorney General Ken Paxton opened an investigation into the Austin Police Department.10Texas Tribune. Texas Greg Abbott ICE Houston Dallas Austin Immigration
The Texas Civil Rights Project has argued that detention based on civil administrative warrants, rather than criminal warrants signed by a judge, raises Fourth Amendment concerns. Abbott rejected that view and said the revised city policies comply with Supreme Court precedent.11Spectrum Local News. Texas Cities ICE Cooperation Fourth Amendment
Where People Are Held
Texas hosts some of the country’s largest immigration detention centers, most of them run by private contractors under ICE agreements. A July 2025 report documented the major facilities and their fiscal year 2025 peak populations:12TRAC Reports. ICE Detention Facilities Report
- Montgomery ICE Processing Center in Conroe, operated by GEO Group: 1,314 beds, peak 1,361.
- Port Isabel Service Processing Center in Los Fresnos, operated by Akima Global Services: 1,175 beds, peak 1,278.
- Bluebonnet Detention Facility in Anson, operated by Management and Training Corp.: 1,000 beds, peak 1,206.
- Karnes County Immigration Processing Center in Karnes City, operated by GEO Group: 928 beds, peak 1,311.
- El Paso Service Processing Center: 840 beds, peak 906.
- Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, operated by LaSalle Corrections: 707 beds, peak 1,030.
Several facilities exceeded their contractual capacity during fiscal year 2025. The South Texas ICE Processing Center in Pearsall, operated by GEO Group, adds another 1,904 beds.13The GEO Group. South Texas ICE Processing Center
Camp East Montana at Fort Bliss
The largest and most contested facility is Camp East Montana, a tent camp on the Fort Bliss military base in El Paso. It opened in August 2025, has a planned capacity of 5,000, and held a daily average of more than 2,500 detainees as of April 2026. The Department of Defense spent over $363 million building it, with projected costs to reach full capacity running up to $1.2 billion.14Texas Tribune. Texas ICE Camp East Montana Conditions Lawsuit15U.S. Senate. Cost Report on Diverting Military Resources for Immigration Enforcement
ICE inspectors identified nearly 50 violations of detention standards at Camp East Montana, including inadequate medical care and failures to document suicide-prevention checks. At least three detainees have died there. The El Paso County Medical Examiner’s Office ruled the death of Cuban national Gerald Lunas Campos a homicide, and no charges have been filed.16NPR. Immigrant Detainees Sue Texas Camp East Montana
In May 2026, the ACLU, the ACLU of Texas, the Texas Civil Rights Project, and the law firm Farella Braun + Martel filed a federal class-action lawsuit, Akari Angye et al. v. ICE, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas. The complaint alleges Fifth Amendment violations and cites physical and sexual abuse by guards, medical neglect, a measles outbreak that infected at least 14 people, and inadequate nutrition.17ACLU. Legal Organizations File Lawsuit Over Immigration Detention Conditions at Camp East Montana DHS has denied the allegations and said all detainees receive adequate healthcare and three meals a day. ICE replaced the facility’s prime operator with a new contractor in March 2026.14Texas Tribune. Texas ICE Camp East Montana Conditions Lawsuit
Advocates say legal access inside the camp is tightly limited. The ACLU documented that the facility restricts legal service providers to meeting only ten detainees per day.18ACLU. Detained Immigrants Detail Physical Abuse and Inhumane Conditions
The Return of Family Detention at Dilley
CoreCivic reached an agreement in March 2025 with ICE and the City of Dilley to reopen the 2,400-bed South Texas Family Residential Center, which the Biden administration had closed over high operating costs. CoreCivic’s CEO said the company expected $180 million in annual revenue from the site. The reopening reversed the Biden-era policy that had ended the detention of migrant families, and drew protests from Japanese internment survivors and faith leaders.19Texas Tribune. Texas Dilley Immigration Detention Center Families Reopen
Deportation Flights Out of Texas
Texas is a major hub for ICE air removals. Between January 20 and December 31, 2025, ICE conducted 2,138 deportation flights to 79 countries, up from 45 countries the year before. Roughly 80 percent went to Latin America, with Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico receiving the highest volume.20El Paso Times. ICE Deportation Flights Surged in 2025, Sending Migrants to 79 Countries
The primary contractor is CSI Aviation, based in Killeen, Texas, which has received over $1 billion in ICE contracts. CSI subcontracts much of the actual flying to companies including GlobalX, which operated 74 percent of ICE removal flights over the past year. A GlobalX flight under a CSI contract allegedly transported 238 people to El Salvador in violation of a federal court order in March 2025, prompting a congressional investigation.21U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security. Letter to CSI Aviation
The first military-assisted deportation flight departed from Fort Bliss on January 24, 2025, using C-17 and C-130 aircraft at significantly higher cost than civilian charters. The Department of Defense estimated $166,000 to move 80 deportees to Guatemala City, versus roughly $55,000 for a civilian flight carrying 105 people. Military deportation operations were paused in September 2025 after at least 88 stops on 63 routes, at a cost of at least $33.1 million in DOD funds.15U.S. Senate. Cost Report on Diverting Military Resources for Immigration Enforcement
By April 2026, total removal flights hit a monthly record of 245, reaching 38 countries. Flights to Mexico rose to an average of 23 per week, up from five earlier in the year, as the administration shifted from land-border removal of Mexican nationals to flying them to southern cities such as Tapachula and Villahermosa.22Human Rights First. ICE Flight Monitor
Where ICE Can Make Arrests
In January 2025, the Department of Homeland Security rescinded a policy, in place since 2011, that had barred ICE and CBP from making arrests at schools, houses of worship, hospitals, funerals, and public demonstrations. Enforcement at those locations is now left to the case-by-case discretion of local ICE officials.23ABC News. Trump Authorizes ICE to Target Schools, Churches
A court order partially limits the change. As of March 2025, ICE is enjoined from implementing the new policy at approximately 1,400 specified places of worship across 36 states, where the older Biden-era protections remain in effect unless ICE acts under an administrative or judicial warrant.24ICE. Protected Areas
Along the border, strips of Texas land have been designated “National Defense Areas,” which treats them as extensions of nearby military bases. Soldiers can detain people who enter and charge them with criminal trespass on a military installation, with penalties up to 12 months in jail. Over 1,400 migrants had been charged under this provision by June 2025.25Migration Policy Institute. Trump 2 Immigration First Year
Your Rights If You Are Detained
People detained by ICE in Texas keep certain protections. The Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause applies to everyone in the United States, including non-citizens. You have the right to hire an attorney, though the government is not required to provide one. You can request a list of free or low-cost legal service providers, use law libraries at least five hours per week, and receive visits from legal representatives.26ACLU. Know Your Rights: Immigrants’ Rights
Most people detained during an active immigration case are eligible for release on bond, and anyone denied release can ask for a bond hearing before an immigration judge. You have the right to remain silent about your immigration status, the right to a hearing to challenge a deportation order, and the right to contact your country’s consulate.26ACLU. Know Your Rights: Immigrants’ Rights
Access to those rights has narrowed in practice. A February 2026 Department of Justice interim rule tried to limit appellate review at the Board of Immigration Appeals, though a federal court blocked significant portions of it in March 2026.27American Immigration Council. Due Process and Courts If you or a family member is detained in Texas, contacting an immigration attorney or a legal aid organization quickly is the most direct way to protect those rights, because bond hearings, custody transfers, and removal flights can move faster than many families expect.