Homeland Security Investigations

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the results of a raid on a Charleston, South Carolina, raid that led to the arrest of 72 illegal aliens. Officials report the nightclub is operated by a suspected member of Los Zetas cartel The cartel is designated by the U.S. State Department as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested a Guatemalan illegal alien for submitting false statements to become a sponsor for two unaccompanied alien children. Among other things, the man submitted an “obviously photoshopped” photo to help establish a familial relationship to one of the boys.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, jointly with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and other law enforcement partners, executed search warrants in Southern Mississippi that resulted in multiple arrests involving illegal immigration, cockfighting, and other criminal activity. The search warrants were part of an ongoing undercover investigation into the unlawful cockfighting in Harrison County, Mississippi.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents from Dallas, Texas, arrested a man for making “terroristic threats against ICE agents” and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem.

A host of federal law enforcement agencies banded together with ICE to carry out deportation raids as part of Operation Take Back America within four days that ended on Friday. The United States Attorney’s office for the Southern District of Kentucky announced the arrest of 81 illegal aliens, 25 of whom now face various federal criminal charges.

Joint federal investigations and deportation raids in New Mexico took dozens of criminal illegal aliens off the streets in recent weeks. Four illegal aliens were arrested as part of investigations into weapons offenses.

A multi-agency local, state, and federal law enforcement task force arrested more than 500 criminal aliens during a week-long series of targeted raids. The arrests included seven documented gang members, ICE officials said.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agents and other state and local law enforcement officials arrested 118 illegal aliens during Monday’s immigration raid inside the Colony Ridge Subdivision near Houston, Texas. According to ICE, the multi-agency immigration raid netted migrants charged with a myriad of criminal charges and criminal convictions.

A multi-agency manhunt for a seven-time deported Salvadoran illegal alien wanted for murder came to a head Monday night, with the subject taken safely into custody. The suspected MS-13 gang member took off on Monday after allegedly stabbing a neighbor in the Colony Ridge subdivision. Colony Ridge is reported to be Texas’ largest migrant colony.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott announced Department of Public Safety troopers and special agents assisted federal law enforcement agents with the Department of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) as they conducted immigration raids into the Colony Ridge Subdivision near Houston. Abbott announced the action in a social media post on X early Monday afternoon.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and agents arrested the owners of a donut shop after finding eight illegal aliens working in the business. The owners of Abby’s Bakery in Los Fresnos, Texas, allegedly admitted to investigators they knew the migrants were unlawfully present in the United States.

agents in Texas arrested a Mexican national who pleaded guilty in 2021 for invasive visual recordings in

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers teamed up with local law enforcement to arrest members of the Tren de Aragua gang on fentanyl-dealing charges. President Donald Trump recently designated the violent Venezuelan Tren de Aragua (TdA) gang as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO).

Fresh Mark Incorporated, a Northeast Ohio-based company that supplies meat products to all 50 states and more than 20 countries, entered into a non-prosecution agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The company paid a nearly $4 million penalty for a hiring manager’s involvement in an identity theft scheme and subsequent obstruction of justice.

Federal authorities in the United States deported the man who was the supreme leader of the Gulf Cartel and founder of Los Zetas. The former kingpin has completed his sentence in the United States. He is now being held in a Mexican prison where he is expected to face trial on several drug trafficking, murder, weapons, and organized crime charges in Mexico.

The last of six human smugglers pleaded guilty last week to the deaths of two Salvadoran migrants who were beaten to death in a warehouse in Houston in 2006. The two smugglers face up to life in prison following sentencing hearings set for next year.

Zavala County Sheriff’s deputies led an operation within their county designed to target online child predators. On Thursday, the department announced the arrest of nine suspects arrested for a variety of charges related to child pornography and solicitation of a minor, all federal felony offenses.

Whistleblowers informed Sen. Josh Hawley that Donald Trump’s campaign rally, where he was nearly assassinated, was a “loose” security event.

A federal judge sentenced a Chinese migrant who illegally crossed the border into Texas to 12 years in prison after authorities found several videos depicting child porn in his cell phone. One of the videos involved a girl who was under the age of five years.

A potential tragedy was averted in the small border city of Eagle Pass, Texas, when Maverick County Sheriff’s Office deputies stopped a tractor-trailer on Thursday. After noting suspicious behavior by the truck driver and noises coming from the trailer, the deputies searched the pneumatic tank trailer being towed by the driver and located 18 migrants sealed inside.

A Texas man pleaded guilty to buying a gun for the Gulf Cartel used by gunmen in Mexico during a kidnapping where two U.S. citizens were murdered.

Border Patrol agents in the Miami Sector apprehended a group of Chinese migrants who were smuggled via boat to a beach landing. Border Patrol officials report increases in the smuggling of Chinese migrants in multiple border sectors.

Law enforcement teams raided an alleged auto-theft ring in Harris County and found more than two kilos of fentanyl, guns, vehicles, cash, and other drugs. The raid took place on the southwest side of Houston.

The son of the ultimate leader of the Gulf Cartel will spend more than eight years in a U.S. prison for coordinating the shipment of weapons into Mexico for the criminal organization once led by his father. He was on supervised release at the time of his arrest. The narco-heir has a long history of prior convictions on weapons charges and is currently facing multiple charges in a Texas court for a violent stabbing in the border city of Brownsville.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials report fentanyl smugglers are significantly increasing their use of the U.S. Postal Service and other express consignment carriers to bring the deadly drugs into the United States.

A woman residing illegally in the United States pleaded guilty this week before a federal judge to sex trafficking involving the use of force, fraud, or coercion of both adult and minor females. The victims were forced to perform commercial sex acts in a cantina in Houston.

A U.S. federal court sentenced a Salvadoran man to nearly four years in prison for his role in helping his wife and her boyfriend smuggle weapons and ammunition into Mexico. In one of the smuggling attempts, the group tried to send more than 13,000 rounds of ammunition across the Texas-Mexico.

El Paso Sector Border Patrol and ICE Homeland Security Investigations agents teamed up to rescue a one-year-old child after human smugglers kidnapped the child. The child is reunited with her mother who was also in Border Patrol custody.

Seventy missing children were found by authorities, most of them in West Texas, during a lengthy effort dubbed “Operation Lost Souls.”

A former Mexican police officer will spend 30 years in prison for having a series of videos and photographs where he sexually assaulted a young girl. Authorities in the U.S. discovered the videos inside a cell phone when the police officer tried to cross into Texas through a port of entry.

A federal court in South Texas sentenced a member of the Mexican Mafia gang to 33 months in prison for his role in a human smuggling scheme. The conviction came from a May 2021 incident where Rafael Alberto Cazarez, Jr. drove 54 migrants trapped inside a tank.

A federal grand jury indicted ten people for their roles in an alleged human smuggling incident that killed eight migrants. The deaths occurred in March when an alleged smuggler fled from police and crashed into oncoming traffic.

Law enforcement officials in Vermont rescued three women who were padlocked inside an apartment. Officials believe the women were being held against their will in a human trafficking scheme.

More than one hundred visitors and residents in the Texas border city of McAllen attended a rally and march to the border wall to shed light on the dangers of child trafficking. One guest speaker at the event, Karla Jacinto, recounted her story as a victim of child trafficking at the age of 12.

For a second time in as many days, Hutchinson County Sheriff Blaik Kemp and his deputies were forced to release migrants after federal officials refused to take them into custody. Sheriff’s office officials released the migrants, 24 in all, after Kemp exhausted all efforts to get assistance from federal agencies. Deputies arrested two suspects and charged them with Trafficking of Persons among other charges.

Officials in San Diego, California, report at least four migrants died and as many as 27 were injured when a human smuggler’s overloaded vessel capsized off the coast.