"Operation Lone Star 2.0": DPS arresting thousands of undocumented immigrants across Texas to aid Trump's mass deportati

Texas Department of Public Safety officers have helped arrest more than 3,000 undocumented immigrants across the state this year, according to public records obtained by The Texas Tribune that provide the most detailed glimpse yet of how state police are shifting their focus from the border toward aiding the Trump administration’s mass deportation crusade — an effort that state officials have kept largely under wraps.

From late January through early September, DPS recorded 3,131 previously unreported arrests connected to specialty teams created at the direction of Gov. Greg Abbott to help President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, the agency’s records show. Roughly 88% of the people arrested were picked up on suspicion of violating federal immigration laws like improper entry into the country, marking what may be an unprecedented use of state resources for a role once performed exclusively by federal authorities.

“Operation Lone Star 2.0 is underway statewide — with DPS personnel working to combat and interdict criminal activity with a nexus to the border,” DPS spokesperson Sheridan Nolen said in an email, referring to Texas’ border initiative under the Biden administration for which thousands of troopers were dispatched to the border.

Amid a sharp fall in illegal border crossings, DPS has moved some of its troopers and investigators onto “strike teams” that work with federal agencies across Texas — including in each of the largest metro areas — to arrest people “who have entered the United States illegally and then gone on to commit crimes in the state,” according to the agency.

https://www.texastribune.org/2025/09/12/texas-dps-immigration-arrests-trump-deportation-operation-lone-star/