U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it arrested at least 84 people Sunday in what the agency describes as a "targeted operation" meaning agents were looking for specific undocumented people with criminal backgrounds.
New store surveillance camera video obtained by NBC 5’s sister station, Telemundo 39, shows one of the arrests that appears to be part of Sunday’s operation. The video shows agents from ICE and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), apprehending a man inside a taqueria and grocery store near Royal Lane and Dennis Road in Dallas.
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A witness told Telemundo 39 the man ran into the shop from a nearby apartment complex and said ICE was looking for him.
“They came and hide in here, at one of the businesses at Dennis and Royal but when (the agents) came in, they take him and they didn't take anyone else,” said Emilsa Bautista, who owns a neighboring business.
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ICE said it could not provide details on that arrest, but hopes to release more information about people caught in the operation in the coming days.
Most of the more than 80 people arrested were targeted for what the agency describes as varying degrees of criminal history, an ICE official told NBC 5.
Some were already in the custody of local police when they were taken into custody by ICE.
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The agency says it did make some arrests of other undocumented people who happened to be with targeted individuals, but an official could not immediately provide numbers.
According to ICE, Sunday’s operation took place in cities including Dallas, Irving, Arlington, Fort Worth and locations in Collin County.
Over the weekend the agency released images of larger-scale operations in Chicago which it says were aimed at detaining suspected gang members or previously convicted criminals—part of a Trump Administration effort to significantly increase arrests.
It’s a plan that some former ICE officials say will take time to implement, at an agency with limited resources.
“It's very challenging because ICE doesn't have any more officers than it had before Trump became president,” said Paul Hunker, who served as chief legal counsel at ICE in Dallas where he was involved in enforcement operations.
Hunker says the agency would likely need assistance from other federal law enforcement agencies to quickly ramp up arrests, and more money from Congress to hire additional agents to sustain those efforts.
“There's only so many officers. So in terms of large scale, you know, hundreds of people being arrested every day in the community, I doubt we're going to see that in the short run,” said Hunker.
Even with existing staff, ICE has made a significant number of arrests in recent years. ICE statistics show from 2020 to 2024 the agency arrested more than 48,000 people in its Dallas area of responsibility which includes a large swath of northern Texas and Oklahoma, illustrating that even though Sunday’s arrests are getting a lot of attention in North Texas because of the new administration, this is the kind of work ICE agents do every day.
Last January alone, ICE statistics show more than 730 arrests were made in that broad Dallas region. However, it is more unusual to see ICE team up with other federal law enforcement partners to conduct a targeted weekend operation.
In Chicago, ICE was also assisted by agents from the DEA and FBI, suggesting a more coordinated law enforcement approach along with increased publicity, as the new administration aims to highlight its efforts to curb illegal immigration.