ICE Arrests 4,170 Illegal Immigrants in 10 Days Across Texas, DHS Says

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested 4,170 illegal immigrants during a 10-day statewide operation in Texas, according to figures the Department of Homeland Security confirmed on Thursday. That works out to an average of more than 400 arrests a day, The National News Desk reported.

The operation, which DHS calls “Lone Star Mission,” produced some of the largest daily arrest totals the agency has recorded in a single state, according to Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin, who first reported the DHS-confirmed numbers in a post on X.

BREAKING: DHS confirms to @FoxNews that ICE just finished a 10-day statewide operation in Texas that resulted in the arrests of 4,170 illegal aliens, an average of 400+ per day and some of the largest daily numbers the agency has ever seen for a single state.

DHS Secretary…

— Bill Melugin (@BillMelugin_) October 29, 2026

Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin laid out the results at a press conference Thursday afternoon, which Fox News carried live. “Over 60% of those individuals had a criminal background,” Mullin said during the news conference, according to The National News Desk. He also described the people arrested as “the worst of the worst,” the outlet reported.

Texas cooperation credited

Mullin credited the state of Texas for working directly alongside ICE during the operation, according to video of his remarks posted on X. The partnership stands in sharp contrast to sanctuary jurisdictions such as New York City, Chicago and much of California, where local officials have limited cooperation with federal immigration agents.

Texas has spent years building that relationship. The Texas Tribune reported in September 2025 that Texas Department of Public Safety officers had helped arrest more than 3,000 immigrants across the state that year through specialty strike teams Gov. Greg Abbott created to support President Trump’s deportation effort. Many of those arrests took place in Austin, Dallas and Houston, the Tribune reported.

What DHS has not released

DHS has not yet released a list of the people arrested in the Texas operation or detailed their alleged offenses, according to The National News Desk. The department has also not said how many of the 4,170 have already been removed from the country.

The Texas results came the same day DHS published a separate release saying ICE had arrested several convicted criminals nationwide on Wednesday, including people convicted of murder and drug trafficking. “Under President Trump, DHS does not pick and choose which laws to enforce,” Mullin said in that release. The department said in the same statement that ICE officers face what it described as a more than 1,600% increase in assaults against them.

Why it matters

The Texas numbers are a test case for what immigration enforcement looks like when a state government works with federal agents instead of against them. A pace of more than 400 arrests a day in one state, if DHS’s figures hold, would rank among the agency’s strongest single-state results, according to Fox News.

The announcement also lands days before the November 3 election, as border security and deportations remain central issues for voters. Democrats in sanctuary states have argued that local cooperation with ICE erodes trust in immigrant communities. Supporters of the administration counter that the Texas model shows how many criminal illegal immigrants can be taken off the streets when local officials stop blocking federal enforcement.

Daily Beltway will update this story if DHS releases the names, charges or criminal histories of those arrested.

Sources

• Bill Melugin, Fox News, on X
• The National News Desk
• Fox News video: Mullin announces Texas ICE operation results
• DHS press release, Oct. 29, 2026
• The Texas Tribune, Sept. 2025

Reporting by Daily Beltway.