Federal agents arrested 4,170 illegal aliens across Texas in just 10 days, and over 60 percent of them had criminal records — a staggering indictment of what years of non-enforcement has allowed to accumulate in American communities.

The operation, dubbed "Lone Star Mission," averaged more than 400 arrests per day and produced some of the largest daily arrest totals ICE has recorded in a single state, according to the Department of Homeland Security. DHS Secretary Markwayne Mullin didn't mince words: "Over 60% of those individuals had a criminal background," he told reporters in Dallas on Thursday, describing the apprehended individuals as "the worst of the worst."

This is what it looks like when the federal government does its job. The question every American should be asking is how many criminals were walking free — and how many citizens paid the price — while Washington looked the other way.

ICE Field Office Director for Dallas Miguel Vergara said the agency's five Enforcement and Removal Operations offices in Texas made targeted arrests of illegal immigrants who posed threats to public and national safety, including previously deported felons convicted of violent crimes. The operation leaned heavily on ICE's 287(g) program, which deputizes state and local police to carry out immigration enforcement. More than 29,000 state and local officers have been deputized through the program.

Mullin took direct aim at sanctuary politicians who refuse to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. "This is what law and order looks like. This is what safety looks like," he said. "And when you support sanctuary policies, you're supporting gang bangers, child pedophiles, rapists, Cartels, and organized crime." Sanctuary policies, he said, are not humanitarian — they are a "safe haven" for "criminals to call home" and "terrorize" communities.

Border czar Tom Homan, speaking separately in Miami, said ICE broke its own arrest records every month between June and August, then set an all-time deportation record in September. "Hundreds of thousands of criminal aliens have been removed from this country, which makes your neighborhood safer, which is part of the reason that crime rates are at an all time low," Homan said. CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott added that Border Patrol has released zero illegal aliens into the country for nearly 18 straight months.

Homan also issued a warning to New York, where Governor Kathy Hochul signed a law banning local police from cooperating with ICE. He said cooperation allows agents to arrest criminals inside jails safely. "Because if you don't, we're going to do our job, which means we're going to the neighborhood, and we'll find the bad guy, and many times they're with others — if they're in the country illegally, they're coming too, even if they're not the target of that operation."

The Baltimore News and Post Millennial both reported the core arrest figures and Mullin's remarks. The New York Post, by contrast, framed the story around Homan's record deportation numbers and his warning to New York, burying the Texas operation's criminal-record rate entirely. None of the outlets pressed DHS on why a full list of suspects wasn't released, or pressed officials on the years of failure that let these criminals slip in to begin with.

The record-setting arrests come days before the 2026 midterm elections. President Trump and Republican candidates have made strict immigration enforcement a centerpiece of their pitch. The politics are obvious — but so is the policy result. Enforcement works. The open question is how many Americans are dead today because it took this long.