Texas Border Crisis

The Department of Justice filed nearly 200 new federal criminal cases related to immigration and border security last week, following several weeks of intense deportation raids in and around Houston and other South Texas cities.

A man from Laredo, Texas, is under arrest after Texas Department of Public Safety troopers allegedly caught him smuggling illegal aliens. The arrest followed a dangerous high-speed pursuit through a residential neighborhood near the state’s border with Mexico.

A border wall upgrade construction project canceled by President Joe Biden is back underway in the Texas Rio Grande Valley.

Vice President JD Vance and several other administration officials will tour the Texas border city of Eagle Pass on Wednesday. The trip follows Tuesday night’s historic speech to a joint session of Congress, during which President Donald Trump proudly celebrated his administration’s success in reducing migrant encounters at the southern border by 94 percent.

Border Patrol agents in Texas teamed up with sheriff’s deputies in two counties, leading to the seizure of more than a half-million dollars in cash. The occupants of the vehicle face state charges related to cash smuggling.

Las autoridades de México arrestaron a un fugitivo que era el líder de una organización familiar de narcotráfico que trabajaba con varios cárteles que desde principios de la década de 2000 establecieron rutas desde Guatemala hasta la frontera con Texas. El fugitivo se escondía en un lujoso vecindario en el estado fronterizo de Nuevo León.

Authorities in Mexico arrested an elusive fugitive who was the alleged leader of a family-run drug smuggling operation that worked with various cartels which, since the early 2000s, established routes from Guatemala to the Texas border. The fugitive was hiding in a ritzy neighborhood in the border state of Nuevo Leon.

Hundreds of Texas National Guardsmen participated in a swearing-in ceremony to allow them to enforce immigration law in partnership with U.S. Border Patrol agents.

Migrant apprehensions along the Southwest U.S. Border with Mexico fell by nearly 96 percent last week, compared to the average number of apprehensions in February 2024. According to data from the Texas Department of Public Safety, apprehensions over the previous seven days in the five Texas-based border sectors fell by nearly 89 percent from last year.

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem completed her first trip to the southwest border as the leader of the department on Sunday. Noem visited the Del Rio, Texas Port of Entry where she sat for a news interview before joining the Border Patrol agents for a border tour on horseback through an area that once say more than 30,000 mostly Haitian migrants camped out under the same Port of Entry in 2021.

A former Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office deputy in South Texas will spend almost four years in prison for his role in staging fake drug busts as a way to steal drugs from drug cartel members.

The group of four suspected cartel members who fired at U.S. Border Patrol agents in Texas this week was able to avoid capture after a tense standoff. Mexican authorities left the area, allowing the gunmen to walk away. Mexican authorities have since begun to deny the shooting in an attempt to minimize the violence in the region.

Authorities in Mexico discovered a small narco-camp on an island from where Los Zetas fired on U.S. agents. The discovery came when Mexican state police forces raided the island one day after the initial shooting.

Mexico’s Attorney General Alejandro Gertz Manero tried to discredit reports of a cartel shootout on the Texas border but got the dates wrong.

Several Border Patrol agents conducting surveillance and enforcement activities in Texas came under fire from suspected Mexican drug cartel operatives early Monday afternoon.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott called on Congress to reimburse the State for more than $11.1 billion spent on border security. The governor said Texas taxpayers footed the bill for border security “due to the Biden Administration’s refusal to do its job for the last four years.”

Texas Governor Greg Abbott ordered the deployment of additional floating barriers on the Rio Grande near Eagle Pass. A federal appeals court previously ruled the State could continue its efforts in a lawsuit filed by the Biden administration.

Former Texas Border Czar Mike Banks took the helm of the U.S. Border Patrol on Monday. President Donald Trump appointed Banks as Chief of the United States Border Patrol shortly after being sworn in.

A West Texas sheriff’s deputies arrested a Venezuelan asylum seeker last week for smuggling a group of migrants into the interior of the U.S. The migrants were part of a steady stream of migrants apprehended in Terrell County, Texas, during the final days of the Biden administration.

Authorities in Mexico discovered a new tunnel believed to be used by cartel members to smuggle migrants into El Paso, Texas.

A report indicates that authorities in South Texas arrested a Russian mercenary who had crossed the border illegally from Mexico.

Border Patrol agents arrested a group of Special Interest Aliens after they crossed the border from Mexico into Texas last week. The group included two Iranian nationals and two Egyptian migrants.

Texas Department of Public Safety troopers utilizing a K-9 team tracked down and arrested a previously deported Mexican migrant. The Mexican nationl was found while trying to avoid apprehension after illegally re-entering the United States from Mexico.

Texas Department of Public Safety troopers arrested four confirmed Tren de Aragua gang members after they illegally crossed the border from Mexico. The four Venezuelan gang members crossed in a group of 22 migrants from four countries on New Year’s Eve.

A group of unidentified gunmen shot and wounded a Venezuelan migrant during a failed kidnapping attempt at the Mexico-Texas border.

A migrant illegally present in the United States is in a Texas jail charged with kidnapping a Guatemalan migrant woman and holding her for ransom. He reportedly forced the woman to perform labor to work off her smuggling debt.

A Honduran migrant who entered the U.S. as an unaccompanied minor now faces a murder charge in Harris County, Texas. The man was ordered removed from the U.S. by an immigration judge in 2010 after failing to show up for scheduled hearings, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott launched a billboard campaign in Mexico and Central America, warning of the consequences of illegal migrants to the Lone Star State. One billboard asks migrant parents, “How much did you pay to have your daughter raped?”

A group of gunmen in South Texas kidnapped two victims and held them in the border city of Brownsville, Texas. The gunmen tortured them for days over the alleged theft of drugs.

Five men with alleged ties to the violent Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua are under arrest after Texas state and local police found $1 million in drugs in a Houston apartment. In addition to the drugs, police seized 24 firearms.

The Texas Department of Public Safety announced the graduation on November 28 of its first class of Border Mounted Patrol Unit troopers. Within a week, the team was already intercepting migrant got-aways making their way into the U.S. interior without being apprehended at the border.

An investigation by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agents identified a migrant smuggling ring being operated by three U.S. Army Soldiers based at Fort Cavazos near Killeen, Texas.

Texas Department of Public Safety Troopers interdicted 176 migrants in a single group after they crossed the Rio Grande from Mexico on Sunday. The group crossed into the United States near the small Texas border town of Eagle Pass shortly before noon. According to a DPS spokesperson, 11 migrants within the group were identified as Special Interest Aliens (SIA) from Afghanistan.

Border Patrol agents and Texas National Guard soldiers ordered a medical airlift on Sunday morning for a migrant child seriously injured in a razor wire barrier along the border. The child was injured as a large migrant group pushed their way through after a standoff with Guardsmen.

Texas Department of Public Safety troopers detained a Mexican woman after she allegedly paid a human smuggler $8,000 to bring her five-year-old daughter across the Rio Grand. Troopers made the discovery after a traffic stop in Del Rio, Texas.

Border Patrol agents apprehended a group of 289 migrants near Eagle Pass, Texas. Embedded with the group were seven Special Interest Aliens from Iran.