AUSTIN, Texas — The past year marks a major shift in the way immigration offenses are being handled in Texas.
State and local law enforcement have detained and turned over thousands of people to federal agents, with the Texas Department of Public Safety shifting its immigration focus from the U.S.-Mexico border to undocumented immigrants living across the state.
Through interviews, documents and publicly available data, we found that many of those undocumented immigrants are not the violent criminals the Trump administration has promised to deport.
Undocumented detainee shares his story
CBS Austin spoke with an Austin-area undocumented man who was detained after a traffic stop in Llano County in early 2025.
We confirmed his story through records obtained by the Llano County Sheriff’s Office.
The man, who preferred to remain anonymous as his case moves forward, said he has lived in Texas for roughly two decades, worked in construction, and is raising a family. His lawyer confirmed he does not have a criminal history.
“Everything was nice and fine up until recently,” he said in Spanish.
A call sheet from the sheriff’s office indicates a deputy pulled the man over for having an obstructed license plate, and was then turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
He shared that he was in a detention center for three weeks, at times without access to clean water.
“There was a point that the sink was clogged up and to brush my teeth, I had to use the water from the toilet,” he said.
Now, he is under federal surveillance and is doing mandatory check-ins every eight weeks. He is also unable to work.
“I used to be the breadwinner for my family, but now it’s my wife, and sometimes she can make it, and sometimes she cannot,” he said.
His story is not unique in Central Texas.
Immigration attorney perspective
Iris Albizu, an Austin-based immigration attorney, said her office has been flooded with people looking for assistance since January 2025.
“People that usually would be a low priority for immigration, now seem to be a high priority, even when there is no criminal history,” Albizu said.
Albizu pointed to data from the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), which collects federal immigration data.
As of Jan. 25, 2026, TRAC reports 74.2% of immigrants in detention centers have no criminal history. Texas currently houses the largest number of ICE detainees, with 18,684 in custody as of Jan. 26.
She pointed to policy changes at a state and local level that are enabling law enforcement to be more involved in federal immigration enforcement.
“What we’ve seen in Texas is the state trying to basically get their hands in something that is already occupied by the federal government and then the check of balances and how are the democracy done is supposed to be that each you know level shouldn’t handle their matters independently,” she said.
Local coordination with federal immigration enforcement
Police departments and sheriff’s offices across Texas are partnering with ICE via 278(g) agreements under the Immigration and Nationality Act.
The partnerships allow local authorities to carry out some immigration enforcement activities that typically could only be carried out by federal officials.
“The Program enhances the safety and security of our nation’s communities by allowing ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) to partner with state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies to identify and remove criminal aliens who are amenable to removal from the United States,” the ICE website reads.
ICE data shows it currently has agreements in place with 237 agencies in Texas.
Both the Texas DPS Highway Patrol and Criminal Investigations Division have 278(g) agreements in place.
Notably, the Llano County Sheriff’s Department is not participating. The department declined an interview request with CBS Austin to discuss its policies on immigration enforcement.
DPS strike teams
In January 2025, Governor Greg Abbott announced that the Texas Department of Public Safety would deploy “strike teams” to assist the Department of Homeland Securtiy to arrest criminal undocumented immigrants across the state.
“The DPS tactical strike teams will coordinate with the newly established Homeland Security Task Force to leverage personnel and resources to identify and arrest the nearly 5,400 illegal immigrants with active warrants from local jurisdictions across Texas,” the announcement read.
CBS Austin obtained a database of all of the arrests made by the DPS strike teams between January and September 2025. The records showed nearly 4,000 arrests of people in all corners of the state, with an age range between 2 years old and 76 years old.
While some age and location data was missing from the file, the largest number of listed arrests occurred in Travis County.
CBS Austin also obtained a dozen arrest reports for individuals on the list. The reports typically list charges for overstayed visas, being present in the country without admission, and violations of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
Some list violent crimes, such as sexual contact with a child. Others suggest no violation of state law, noting: “No arrests were made on State Law violations and there were no outstanding arrest criminal warrants.”
In the fall, DPS declined an interview request with CBS Austin but provided a statement detailing its “Operation Lone Star 2.0” and strike team activity:
As of Aug. 12, 2025, the department has identified nearly 6,500 criminal illegal immigrants with active felony warrants in Texas for a variety of offenses, including those related to murder, deadly drugs, assault, sex crimes, human smuggling and prostitution – just to name a few. DPS Strike teams work in coordination with federal partners to locate these people and arrest them — a move that is making our state safer by removing dangerous criminals from our streets.
DPS did not respond to a request for clarification about arrests made of undocumented immigrants without listed criminal charges.