Over the week of Aug. 10, Jose Carrasco, a community coordinator in North Austin’s Rundberg neighborhood, received multiple phone calls from his neighbors about arrests made by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
On Aug. 12, there was a call reporting ICE near a mobile home community in Rundberg. “The mobile home park that we’re talking about has one big entrance, and there’s 300-plus mobile homes. Those people felt trapped in their homes,” Carrasco said at an Aug. 14 press conference in Rundberg on ICE presence in the neighborhood.
Earlier that week, Carrasco witnessed another family being detained by ICE agents in front of a church food pantry on Rundberg Lane. “Coming from the H-E-B … I see a beautiful food pantry on my right, and then a detention on my left,” Carrasco recounted. “Somebody just getting pulled out of their car and taken away.”
“Just this morning, I received another one from a parent who’s a troop leader for Boy Scouts. He was active in his church, no criminal history,” Carrasco added. “And their fifth-grader has to start [school] on Tuesday.”
At the press conference, which was held in front of the food pantry where Carrasco saw the family detained, U.S. Rep. Greg Casar reported that “government sources” had cited an increase in ICE detentions within Austin as “three to four times more people being arrested.”
“Now you’re talking about a figure that’s getting closer to 60, 70, 80, 90 people a day,” Casar continued, later adding, “We’re not here to cause panic … but there is an increase, and it is our responsibility to let people know that important information.”
On Aug. 26, Austin Mayor Pro Tem Chito Vela confirmed to the Chronicle that while activity may have decreased slightly since Casar’s mid-August estimate, “There’s no question that there has been, at this point, a sustained increase over pretty much the last two weeks,” particularly in the North Lamar and Rundberg areas of North Austin.
“And my fear is that this is not a surge,” Vela continued. “My fear is that this is a new norm.”
At the Aug. 14 briefing in Rundberg, city leaders urged residents to take steps of precaution: Be in contact with an attorney, and make a plan with your family members in case someone is detained.
“If you are detained, if a family member is detained, make sure you contact an attorney immediately,” Vela added, specifically recommending lawyers who are members of the American Immigration Lawyers Association.
“We’re not here to cause panic … but there is an increase, and it is our responsibility to let people know that important information.”
U.S. Rep. Greg Casar
Vela and Casar also noted that while immigration authorities are able to enter public spaces, they can be denied entry to private property.
“I want to tell restaurants, employers, people that own private offices: You do not have to let ICE into your office,” Casar said. “You don’t have to let ICE into your workplace or your restaurant, unless they have a warrant signed by a judge.”
Vela and Texas House District 49 candidate Montserrat Garibay also encouraged parents to continue sending their kids to school. “The schools are the safest place for you to be,” Garibay said.
Growing up as an undocumented child in Austin, Garibay recounted that her mother made sure that Garibay and her sister had a “plan A, plan B, and plan C,” in case her mother was detained by ICE while they were at school.
“Make sure that you talk to your children about what can happen in case you get picked up by ICE. Make sure that you have one person who can pick up your child,” Garibay said.
“Today, we cannot let fear paralyze us and divide us,” Garibay added in Spanish. “We have to organize ourselves, and make a plan with our immigrant families. We should know the rights we should have … and know who to call if one is detained.”
ICE in Austin
To Vela’s knowledge, the city of Austin has received no word from ICE or DHS regarding the increased activity within the city as of Aug. 26. But through “piecing together” reports his office has received from residents and apartment managers, “It looks like the increased activity probably started in a late May time frame,” Vela continued.
It’s not only happening in Austin, Vela pointed out – ICE made a record-high total of monthly arrests in July for the second Trump administration, the AP reported.
Vela – a former immigration attorney – explained that the way ICE is detaining people has appeared to shift as well. Over the past year, some ICE arrests have been in partnership with the Texas Department of Public Safety, when DPS officers make a traffic stop and call ICE to the scene. ICE has also historically detained people without legal status who are incarcerated in county jails, Vela added.
“I’d say what we’re seeing now is a third category of ICE detentions: ICE out in the community, directly detaining and arresting people, almost exclusively using racial profiling as a basis for the initial approach and detention,” Vela said.
When the Chronicle reached out to ICE about their activity in Austin, an agency representative sent a written statement: “Every day DHS enforces federal immigration laws – a clear federal responsibility under Article I, Article II and the Supremacy Clause across the country in cities like Austin whether pro-criminal illegal alien politicians like it or not. ICE will not be slowing down.”
Based on ICE’s own data updated as of July 20, out of those detained within Central Texas detention centers in fiscal year 2026 (including CoreCivic’s T. Don Hutto Residential Center in nearby Taylor), roughly 82% have no criminal record at all – a figure that doesn’t include unnumbered children, hospital detainees, and other specified individuals in the database.
On Aug. 14, Casar said his staff had submitted a formal inquiry to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security about the increase in ICE activity. On Aug. 27, they had still gotten no response to that inquiry from DHS.
“They’re not going after criminals if they’re trying to patrol working-class neighborhoods, retirement communities, and this rough stretch of road between two elementary schools, a food bank, and a church,” Casar said.
DPS and ICE
In October 2025, Texas DPS signed Task Force Model 287(g) agreements with ICE, which allows designated officers to enforce immigration authority while performing their routine duties and be active participants in ICE-led operations.
Law enforcement agencies can designate and train anywhere from one officer to every officer in the department to participate in their 287(g) agreement, and Task Force Model nominees must have at least two years of experience, the Chronicle previously reported.
When the Chronicle inquired about the extent of Texas DPS officer participation in 287(g), DPS Press Secretary Sheridan Nolen sent a written statement: “DPS officers in every region across Texas – including Troopers and Special Agents – have undergone 287g certification training to become Delegated Immigration Officers and are authorized by ICE to identify, arrest or detain individuals with an immigration violation.”
Nolen added that “DPS officers working on Texas roads have been trained to recognize indicators of someone who may be in the country illegally.” Nolen did not immediately respond to the Chronicle about what those indicators are.
“When encountering illegal immigrants during traffic stops or other law enforcement operations, all DPS officers – regardless of 287g certification – know to notify federal law enforcement partners, including ICE, Homeland Security Investigations, and Border Patrol,” Nolen continued. “And, for over a year, these agencies have been increasingly responsive to our calls for assistance around the clock.”
Alycia Castillo, associate director of policy at the Texas Civil Rights Project, reminded us that unlike when agents enter someone’s home to make an arrest, DPS authorities don’t need to obtain a warrant to make a traffic stop.
“I think because people do have so many rights when they’re in their homes, ICE has taken the tack of – especially in Texas – employing DPS … to do traffic stops, and then they can get involved that way,” Castillo said.
Castillo noted that state officers have pulled people over for minor traffic infractions: a tail light that has gone out, “too-dark” window tint, or expired registration stickers. She added that the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles now requires more specific types of photo identification in order to register or renew vehicle registration. “As time passes, there will be more and more people that have expired tags because they’re not able to renew their registration,” she said.
Castillo also emphasized that in a traffic stop made by DPS officers, passengers in the vehicle are not obligated to present immigration documents, can remain silent, and can ask for an attorney at any point.
“Despite the fact that constitutional law is regularly being broken by ICE enforcement, it is important to know what rights you should have,” Castillo told us. “Number one: not talking to ICE when not necessary.”
At the Aug. 14 briefing, City Council Member José Velásquez pressed that some traffic stops have become “life or death encounters” in Texas communities. In early July, an ICE agent fatally shot a Houston resident and father, Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, when he was driving to work.
“We’ve watched racial profiling put lives in danger. We’ve watched families torn apart, parents taken from their children, and neighbors ripped from their communities. We’ve witnessed a blatant disregard for human dignity and basic human rights,” Velásquez said. “This is not public safety. This is terror, and that is not what we believe in in Austin, Texas.”
Editor’s note: We originally implied that ICE agents can conduct stops for traffic violations. They are only legally allowed to stop vehicles to enforce federal law. The Chronicle regrets the error.
This article appears in September 4 • 2026.
