A news release from the agency said that many who were arrested had criminal histories.
At least two of the 121 individuals who were arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) belonged to the Tren de Aragua gang, which was designated by the State Department as a foreign terrorist organization and global terrorist group last year, ICE said in a news release.
The operation appeared to focus on boaters in Lake Lewisville, a reservoir north of Dallas, according to ICE.
“This operation allowed our agency to use limited resources more effectively,” ICE Dallas Field Office Director Miguel Vergara said in a statement. “The results speak for themselves: 121 arrests, public safety threats off the streets, and stronger coordination among federal, state, and local law enforcement partners.”
The initiative started on June 27 and lasted until early September, ICE said.
Austin Mayor Kirk Watson and Rep. Greg Casar (D-Texas) demanded an investigation into the incident.
Meanwhile, DHS on Friday touted data showing that states with higher deportations of illegal immigrants are seeing the largest decreases in rent.
“Research shows that illegal-worker inflows push rents and home prices up. That inflow has been reversed in the states running the hardest interior enforcement. Want lower cost of living: support mass deportations,” the department wrote in a post on X on Friday.
Texas accounted for around a quarter of ICE arrests in July and also posted the largest drops in rents in the United States. The price of rent dropped by 4.8 percent in San Antonio, 4.3 percent in Austin, and 3 percent in both Dallas and Houston, according to DHS’s post.
DHS said that states that cooperate with ICE have seen the most decreases, adding that rent prices dropped 2.6 percent in Miami, Florida; 4.2 percent in Phoenix, Arizona; 3.2 percent in Atlanta, Georgia; 5.3 percent in Nashville, Tennessee; and 8 percent in New Orleans, Louisiana.
