{"id":434797,"date":"2026-09-13T15:02:24","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T15:02:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/434797\/"},"modified":"2026-09-13T15:02:24","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T15:02:24","slug":"ice-arrests-surge-in-the-el-paso-region-families-are-feeling-the-impact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/434797\/","title":{"rendered":"ICE arrests surge in the El Paso region. Families are feeling the impact."},"content":{"rendered":"

Sonia can still hear her daughter\u2019s frightened voice crying out over the cellphone speaker, \u201cWhat do I do?! What do I do?! Do I open it?!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cRoll down the window! Roll down the window, now!\u201d she heard men shout in the background. The booming sound of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers knocking forcibly on her daughter\u2019s car window sent them both to tears.<\/p>\n

It was that May 22 phone call that changed everything.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sonia was on a call with her daughter, Sofia, who was leaving work during an evening shift break when she was blocked by several black vehicles emblazoned with \u201cICE\u201d in gold letters. She was quickly surrounded by uniformed, masked officers pointing guns toward her on the street just outside her Central El Paso workplace.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sonia rushed to the scene. Sofia exited the car and was swiftly handcuffed. In a moment of grace amid the chaos, Sonia said, when she arrived, officers allowed her to hug her daughter before taking her away.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had every emotion possible \u2013 anger, fear, sadness, guilt \u2013 a lot of guilt,\u201d Sonia said in Spanish.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She\u2019d brought her daughter from Ciudad Ju\u00e1rez to El Paso to trick-or-treat on Halloween 25 years ago. But following a family medical emergency, they never left. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t our intention to stay, but things happened and we found ourselves building a life here. (Being arrested) wasn\u2019t something we thought about much \u2013 until recently with all this happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

El Paso Matters agreed to use pseudonyms for the women, who fear retaliation for telling their story.<\/p>\n

Sofia was among the nearly 3,500 people who were apprehended by ICE in the El Paso region this year through Aug. 5 \u2013 roughly as many as in all of 2025, according to ICE data obtained by the Deportation Data Project<\/a> and analyzed by El Paso Matters. The program, an initiative of the University of California, Berkeley, collects federal data through the Freedom of Information Act.<\/p>\n

More than half those apprehensions came in June and July, the data show.<\/p>\n

The surge in arrests mark a major escalation of immigration enforcement under President Donald Trump\u2019s mass detention and deportation efforts. The administration has broadened whom ICE could arrest and where \u2013 leading to increased and less targeted apprehensions at traffic stops, work sites and immigration appointments.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The aggressive tactics have drawn criticism \u2013 and lawsuits \u2013 from immigration experts, human rights groups and lawmakers who question their legality.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this point, this enforcement has not been targeted toward criminals, but it\u2019s been using a broad net and fishing expeditions,\u201d said Fernando Garcia, co-founder and director of the Border Network for Human Rights based in El Paso. \u201cI would even call them hunting expeditions.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Department of Homeland Security in a statement said that \u201cthose who are here legally and are not breaking other laws have nothing to fear.\u201d<\/p>\n

In all of last year, just over 3,800 immigration arrests were reported in El Paso County and southern Do\u00f1a Ana County. In 2023, fewer than 800 apprehensions were reported in the region as the southern border saw record-high migrant encounters before the COVID-19-related Title 42 restrictions<\/a> ended in May that year. Title 42 allowed migrants crossing between ports of entry to be rapidly expelled without the formal detention process.<\/p>\n

\"chart<\/p>\n

This year, apprehensions in the El Paso region were highest in June, with about 1,030 reported, followed by July with just over 800. Each of those months saw more apprehensions in the area than all of 2023.<\/p>\n

Nationwide, nearly 255,000 ICE arrests, including transfers of people in custody of other law enforcement agencies, have been reported as of Aug. 5 this year \u2013 more than 63,000 in Texas, the data shows. In July alone, nearly 50,000 people were arrested by ICE nationwide.\u00a0<\/p>\n

DHS in its statement dismissed the data, saying neither it nor ICE have verified the Deportation Data Project\u2019s\u00a0 \u201caccuracy, methodology or the analysis\u201d of its figures.<\/p>\n

DHS largely stopped reporting immigration enforcement data after Trump took office in 2025, so organizations like the the Deportation Data Project have had to sue for information. The organization on its website notes that not all the data it receives is 100% accurate as the federal agencies have released multiple versions of its figures \u2013 often with missing, incorrect or inconsistent records.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The administration has maintained its targeting enforcement against \u201cthe worst of the worst,\u201d with DHS in its statement saying most ICE arrests are of illegal aliens charged or convicted of a crime in the United States.<\/p>\n

But according to ICE data provided to the Deportation Data project, most of the people apprehended in the El Paso area this year don\u2019t have criminal records.<\/p>\n

\"chart<\/p>\n

The majority of people apprehended in the El Paso region by ICE this year \u2013 about six in 10 \u2013 don\u2019t have a criminal record, according to the data. That compares with about four in 10 of those arrested in 2025.<\/p>\n

Sofia, 35, is undocumented and among those with no criminal record. She didn\u2019t have a deportation order. On the day of her daughter\u2019s arrest, Sonia said, ICE agents\u00a0<\/p>\n

acknowledged so. They showed her an administrative warrant for people suspected of immigration violations issued by ICE and not a judge.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018No se preocupe,\u2019 dijo, \u2018Ella no tiene nada. No ha hecho nada,\u2019\u201d Sonia said, relaying that an agent told her not to worry because her daughter hadn\u2019t done anything wrong. \u201cSo I said, \u2018Then why are you taking her?\u2019 And he said that because despite that, she still had to go before a judge.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"The Otero County Processing Center in Chaparral, New Mexico, can hold up to 1,000 people detained for immigration reasons. (Cindy Ramirez \/ El Paso Matters)<\/p>\n

Sofia spent just over 50 days at the ICE Otero County Processing Center in Chaparral, New Mexico, and was released under bond. She was ordered to wear a GPS monitoring device and undergo regular check-ins with a deportation officer.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

She was reunited with her mom and two children, ages 11 and 16. Sonia notes that the children are U.S. citizens, as was Sofia\u2019s husband, who died in a car accident just six months earlier.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Now Sofia has an immigration hearing Friday where a judge can issue a final removal order.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s nervous and she\u2019s scared,\u201d Sonia said of her daughter, who won\u2019t likely have legal representation at her hearing.<\/p>\n

Sonia said the family cannot afford private attorneys, especially after Sofia\u2019s husband died, and that legal aid organizations are no longer taking new cases after the Trump administration suspended federal funding.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Critics say mass arrests are indiscriminate, designed to create fear<\/p>\n

Immigration experts and human rights advocates say the roundups are indiscriminate and designed to create fear.<\/p>\n

David J. Bier, director of Immigration Studies at the Cato Institute policy research organization, said the wide net being cast is about increasing arrest numbers rather than catching criminals.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re targeting people who are going to work and carrying out their daily lives, and that means that they\u2019re passing on opportunities to track those people who manage their serious offenses,\u201d Bier said. \u201cAnd so there\u2019s a lack of prioritization. It\u2019s much easier to get big numbers, so let\u2019s go to a place where there\u2019s lots of people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bier said he doesn\u2019t believe the administration\u2019s goals of deporting 1 million people a year are realistic, but said that won\u2019t stop it from continuing on its mission to arrest, detain and deport as many people as possible.<\/p>\n

In its statement, DHS said since Trump came back to office in January 2025, it\u2019s arrested and deported nearly 1.1 million people.<\/p>\n

\"chart<\/p>\n

In the El Paso region, about 2,030 deportations and voluntary departures were reported so far this year compared to 3,027 in all of 2025 \u2013 and five-and-a-half times more than in 2024, according to the Deportation Data Project figures analyzed by El Paso Matters.<\/p>\n

In one case, Cristy Maryori Villafranca-Trejo, the wife of an Army sergeant stationed at Fort Bliss<\/a>, was deported to her native Honduras on Aug. 24 after being apprehended by ICE at an El Paso Walmart in July.<\/p>\n

\u2018Your world falls apart\u2019<\/p>\n

Many of those being arrested are people with valid work permits pending asylum claims or who are in the process of becoming legal residents.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour world falls apart in seconds when you realize you\u2019re not only being arrested, but can be deported and torn away from your family,\u201d a woman who asked to be identified as Maria said in Spanish.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Maria, 39, has lived in El Paso for about 18 years. She said she came to the United States from Ciudad Ju\u00e1rez on a visitor visa and stayed to flee violence and extortion from criminals targeting high-earning professionals such as her husband, a Mexican doctor who is a naturalized U.S. citizen.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Over the past seven years, she has been seeking legal status, spending nearly $17,000 on processing and legal fees, she said. For a year and half, she had to wear a GPS monitoring watch and underwent home visits while her case made its way through the system.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On Sept. 9, 2025, she dropped off her children at school early to ensure she made it to her immigration hearing on time. It didn\u2019t go as planned.<\/p>\n

Maria said the immigration judge told her he had to order her deportation under the new administration. She asked to appeal, so her removal order was automatically stayed \u2013 or paused \u2013 for 30 days while the paperwork was filed.<\/p>\n

\"\"Federal immigration officials detain Yasmir Marquez of Venezuela outside the Richard C. White Federal Building immediately following his immigration hearing in El Paso on May 29, 2025. Marquez had a pending asylum claim and had been granted authority to live and work in the United States while he awaited a hearing. (Corrie Boudreaux \/ El Paso Matters) <\/p>\n

But as she exited the courtroom, she recounts, about seven law enforcement agents in plain clothes and face masks surrounded her, handcuffed her and took her to the El Paso Processing Service Center. The officers, she said, told her that immigrants who wanted to appeal their deportation orders had to remain in detention while their case was in the court system.<\/p>\n

Whether mandatory detention for immigrants while they fight their cases in court is legal is being debated in the courts.<\/p>\n

Maria remained detained through Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year\u2019s Day, she notes, missing holidays with her husband and her four U.S.-born children. She was lucky, she said, that her family lived just minutes away from the processing center and could visit often \u2013 a luxury most others detained didn\u2019t have.<\/p>\n

\"\"The detention building inside the ICE El Paso Service Processing Center, 8915 Montana Ave., (El Paso Matters)<\/p>\n

She was released Jan. 20 with an ankle monitor she says is now a daily accessory.<\/p>\n

\u201cYo cre\u00eda que al salir iba a ser ya mi final. Pero no. Cuando yo salgo, yo empiezo a luchar con mi cabeza porque sal\u00ed con mucho estr\u00e9s postraum\u00e1tico. Tuve que tomar terapia familiar. Tuve que llevar a mis hijos a terapia porque estaban sumamente dolidos,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought I\u2019d be out and that would be the end of it. But when I got out, I started to fight with my own head because I had a lot of post-traumatic stress. I had to go to family therapy,\u201d she said in tears, her voice cracking. \u201cI had to take my children to therapy because they were extremely grief-stricken.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"The headquarters of the Border Network for Human Rights advocacy organization in Central El Paso. (Cindy Ramirez \/ El Paso Matters)<\/p>\n

Garcia, of the Border Network for Human Rights, says one of the biggest consequences of the ICE arrests is family separations.<\/p>\n

\u201cFamilies are being separated, children are being left behind,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s leaving families traumatized one-by-one but as a whole, the community is suffering.\u201d<\/p>\n

In some cases, immigrant children are also being detained.<\/p>\n

In April, Jesus Eduardo Reyes Hermes was arrested outside his South-Central El Paso home while he worked on a car. Agents also detained his 11-year-old son<\/a>, identified as J.R.C. in court records, despite them both having pending asylum claims.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The boy in July asked for voluntary deportation to be reunited with his mother in Venezuela after living in El Paso three years. The boy told El Paso Matters he believes his father\u2019s arrest came after a neighbor called ICE on the family over a noise dispute.<\/p>\n

Garcia noted that he\u2019s seen more people arrested after being turned in by neighbors, friends and even family members that\u2019s deepening a social divide.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Still, he said, the administration\u2019s deportation strategy is based largely on racial profiling.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are being approached because of how they look. We have seen U.S. citizens being questioned, detained and deported because they were racially profiled,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Despite uncertain futures, hope remains<\/p>\n

Sonia, whose daughter was arrested in May, said they don\u2019t know what the future holds.<\/p>\n

They know her daughter could be deported. Her grandchildren \u2013 who are still grieving the loss of their father \u2013 are having difficulty coping with the idea of being separated from their mother or having to be uprooted to live in a country they hardly know \u2013 even if just across an international bridge, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe try not to think about it \u2013 but at the same time, we have to think about it,\u201d Sonia said in Spanish. \u201cThe fact that she\u2019s out now quite frankly is a miracle. Maybe it helped her that she knew English and knew how to speak up and defend herself. Maybe it was God\u2019s will that she\u2019ll be able to stay and keep living her life here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maria, who serves as an immigrant rights advocate, said she\u2019ll continue to fight for herself as well as other women still in ICE detention.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeguimos levantando la voz por ellas,\u201d she said. \u201cTodo ese miedo que quiz\u00e1s tengamos se convierte en coraje y lucha. \u2026\u00a0 Porque si no hacemos nada por los que est\u00e1n adentro encerrados, \u00bfc\u00f3mo vamos a lograr un cambio social?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe continue to raise our voices for them. Any fear we may have turned to anger and fight. \u2026 Because if we don\u2019t do anything for those who are still locked up, how will we achieve social change?\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked what she takes from her experience, Maria said sternly through tears: \u201cAprend\u00ed a valorar m\u00e1s mi vida, mi familia. Aprend\u00ed a valorar mi libertad.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI learned to value my life, my family, more,\u201d she said. \u201cI learned to value my freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n

El Paso Matters CEO Robert Moore contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

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