ICE says it deported more than 500 people in the Houston area in one week

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The U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday said it has deported more than 500 people and arrested more than 400 suspected undocumented immigrants as part of a weeklong operation in the Houston area.

“This initiative will save taxpayers millions of dollars each year by significantly reducing the time that aliens who have exhausted due process and been ordered removed from the U.S. need to be in ICE custody,” said Immigration and Customs Enforcement Houston Field Office Director Bret Bradford.

The Department of Homeland Security didn’t list the type of crimes the people were convicted of or the type of immigration violations they are accused of. But it did highlight five cases of immigrants who were arrested, including two with homicide convictions and one convicted of sexual exploitation of a minor.

It’s unclear whether this is the largest ICE operation in Texas under the Trump administration. The federal government doesn’t publicly release data on arrests or removals consistently.

However, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse — also known as TRAC — a nonprofit organization that maintains and analyzes data it gets through public records requests, the daily average of arrests nationwide from Jan. 26 to March 8 was 812. From Jan. 26 to March 8, the national daily average of removals was 661, an 11% drop from the daily average during the Biden administration, according to TRAC.

“While initially, daily numbers of ICE arrests were posted on social media, this practice stopped when arrest numbers began to fall,” according to a report by TRAC.

The arrests and deportations come as a result of a multi-agency operation that included U.S. Customs and Border Protection; the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; the Diplomatic Security Service; the FBI; the U.S. Marshals Service; and the Texas Department of Public Safety.

“This operation underscores the vital importance of collaboration across federal, state, and local agencies in protecting our communities,” said ATF Houston Special Agent in Charge Michael Weddel. “By working together, we were able to identify and remove individuals who posed a clear threat to public safety. Our unified efforts send a strong message: dangerous criminal aliens will be held accountable, and public safety remains our top priority.”

Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of America’s Voice, a national advocacy group, decried the Trump administration’s efforts to paint immigrants as criminals.

“This administration will have you believe that every immigrant in America is out to harm us, but that is far from the reality,” she said in a statement. “The vast majority of immigrants are here because they believe in the best of America and they are here making meaningful contributions.”

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