{"id":457903,"date":"2026-10-06T11:06:07","date_gmt":"2026-10-06T11:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/457903\/"},"modified":"2026-10-06T11:06:07","modified_gmt":"2026-10-06T11:06:07","slug":"ice-arrests-in-the-austin-area-have-risen-over-300","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/457903\/","title":{"rendered":"ICE arrests in the Austin area have risen over 300%"},"content":{"rendered":"

Immigration and Customs Enforcement received renewed scrutiny and media attention across the nation following the shooting of Wilber Garces Perez<\/a> on Sept. 20 in North Austin.<\/p>\n

But the effects of ICE’s presence in the Austin area increased months before the shooting, following a statewide and national trend.<\/p>\n

Arrest numbers, provided by ICE to the Deportation Data Project<\/a>, show a marked increase starting around the start of President Donald Trump’s second term. The number of ICE arrests that result in detention has risen by 308% from January 2025 to July 2026.<\/p>\n

In March 2025, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche announced “Operation Take Back America.”<\/a><\/p>\n

“The Justice Department has taken numerous steps to empower prosecutors and law enforcement operating in Districts around the country to protect their communities,” Blanche’s memorandum said.<\/p>\n

From January to July of 2025, the first six months of President Trump’s second term, there were 2,844 arrests with detentions in the Austin area. This year, there were 4,817 over the same period.<\/p>\n

Arrests spiked during May through July of 2026. Since October 2022 \u2014 the earliest available data \u2014 the days with the highest numbers of arrests were mostly in May, June and July of this year, with 15 of the 20 highest days of arrests taking place during those three months.<\/p>\n

On June 27, 2026, 83 people were arrested and detained, the most of any day since October 2022.<\/p>\n

The criminal backgrounds of the people arrested have also started to shift. In January 2025, people with no criminal or pending criminal charges made up about 5% of arrests with detention stays. By July 2026, about 60% of all arrests and detentions by ICE were of people with no criminal history, according to the data. <\/p>\n

Jos\u00e9 \u201cChito\u201d Vela, an Austin City Council member and former immigration attorney, said the shift in arrests has been noted in the community. <\/p>\n

“We started seeing some ICE agents out there all alone,” Vela said, “not joint with DPS, but just patrolling, making some stops and things like that, but just out in the community.” <\/p>\n

In the recent case of Garces Perez, his license plate was read in a shopping center parking lot, according to court documents. Garces Perez’s lawyer said he was picking up a DoorDash order at the time of his arrest. <\/p>\n

“At-large arrests,” which take place on streets and public places in the community, have increased, the data shows. From January to July 2024, before Trump took office, at-large arrests made up about 8% of ICE arrests and detentions in the Austin area. In 2026, over the same time period, it made up 37%.<\/p>\n

ICE agreements with local police departments, known as the 287(g) program, have also contributed to the rise of arrests and detentions. The percentage of arrests in the Austin area stemming from the local police agreements was 24% from January to July 2026. The program did not exist before the second Trump administration. <\/p>\n

People of Mexican origin are the highest percentage of arrests and detentions in the Austin area, with over 7,500 since October 2022.<\/p>\n

Carlos Enrique Gonz\u00e1lez Echevarr\u00eda, who tracks the number of detentions for the Mexican Consulate in Austin, said the consulate has been seeing an increase in Mexicans detained by ICE.<\/p>\n

“Unlike the previous year,” Gonz\u00e1lez Echevarr\u00eda wrote in Spanish, “the highest volume of arrests has been made directly by ICE, while the previous year saw constant involvement of DPS, who initiated contact with detainees and then called ICE.”<\/p>\n

Gonz\u00e1lez Echevarr\u00eda also said there has been an increased presence of ICE agents patrolling the streets in Austin and surrounding counties, like Hays and Williamson.<\/p>\n

The Mexican consulate also conducts daily interviews inside the ICE processing center in Pflugerville. <\/p>\n

“We have also not received any complaints from Mexicans who have been victims of abuse of force during their detention or processing,” Gonz\u00e1lez Echevarr\u00eda said.<\/p>\n

Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not provide responses to our questions in time for publication.<\/p>\n

KUT also reached out to 23 police departments in the area, including Austin, Taylor, San Marcos and Bastrop. Many did not respond, referred KUT’s questions to the Department of Homeland Security or said the police department did not work with ICE.<\/p>\n

KUT conducted this data analysis using R, a programming language. We’ve shared the files in this GitHub repository<\/a> for transparency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Immigration and Customs Enforcement received renewed scrutiny and media attention across the nation following the shooting of Wilber…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457904,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,10533,2143,56944,1829,156715,15813,3647,27,153110],"class_list":["post-457903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-austin-tx","tag-central-texas","tag-detention-center","tag-ice","tag-ice-arrest","tag-ice-detention","tag-immigration-and-customs-enforcement","tag-texas","tag-wilber-garces-perez"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457903","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457903"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457903\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457904"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457903"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457903"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457903"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}