Breitbart Texas rode with Larry Adams, Acting Deputy Director of the Houston ICE Field Office, who revealed details of a groundbreaking law enforcement operation targeting criminal hotspots across multiple Texas counties. The pilot operation on Saturday night focused on finding criminal aliens on the streets. Adams told Breitbart Texas that they anticipated there would be more opportunities to find people committing crimes, including carrying drugs, firearms, and driving under the influence.
“We’ve identified approximately 800 potential targets within just a one-mile radius,” Adams explained. Using their proprietary “Elite” system, the team will strategically saturate high-crime areas with 40 volunteer officers from ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) and Customs and Border Protection.
Pre-Op Safety Briefing (Bob Price/Breitbart Texas)
Following Adams’s pre-operation safety briefing to the gathered agents and officers, the team moved out onto the streets in search of criminal aliens. Adams cautioned the officers to continue making “careful, controlled decisions.” He said they expected to encounter more female subjects and that, due to the nature of this operation, they could be in night-club dress. He reminded the team to be respectful, but cautious.
We’ll probably use the uncaged van for the females, but just because they’re females, don’t take them any less of a threat than a male,” Adams advised. “They’re still going to get handcuffed behind the back. If you have full restraints, they still get put in full restraints.”
The first stop of the night was in southeast Houston. Not long after the arrival, the team encountered a pair of illegal alien males. During the takedown, both men resisted arrest and had to be forceably detained. Agents later determined the driver and passenger were allegedly intoxicated. Officers saw the passenger with a six-pack of beer.
An alleged drunk driver and passenger will be removed from the U.S. after an ICE nighttime operation in Southeast Houston. (Bob Price/Breitbart Texas)
The officers safely subdued both men and transported them for processing.
The operation represents a significant departure from traditional enforcement methods. “Instead of sending two or three teams across the area, we’re overrunning these locations,” Adams told Breitbart. The operation will target various criminal categories, including aggravated felons, sexual predators, and other high-risk individuals, he explained.
Adams emphasized the nuanced approach, noting that officers will create legal probable cause through careful license plate checks and immigration verifications. “We’re not just randomly stopping people,” he stressed. ICE officers and agents use a new software system that allows rapid access to a variety of law enforcement databases. By simply running a license plate, agents can quickly determine a driver’s possible identity, along with their criminal history and immigration status. With these results, they can efficiently establish probable cause for a traffic stop and an immigration inspection.
Following several successful stops and arrests in Southeast Houston, the agents moved to the city’s northeast side. The teams spread out to target congested areas, where Adams said they previously used other databases to identify about 800 potential criminal aliens within a one-mile radius.
Adams said the “Elite” software shows hot areas, highly populated, high crime.” He explained that the software allows officers to drill down to the country of origin, the criminality, and even its severity.
“So what we’ll do is we’ll find an area,” Adams explained. “Then we’ll choose (categories) like aggravated felons or crimes of violence, things like that, all the way down to sexual predators.” He explained this is how they develop the targeted enforcement operations that have landed thousands of dangerous criminal aliens in custody, resulting in their permanent removal from the country.
Breitbart observed the officers, working in a downpour, take another drunk driver, an illegal alien, off the streets of Houston.
ICE Launches Intensive Weekend Crackdown Targeting Houston High-Crime Areas (Bob Price/Breitbart Texas)
By the end of this night’s four-hour operation, and despite torrential rains, officers and agents arrested approximately 25 illegal aliens, Adams told Breitbart.
Video Screenshots of Illegal Aliens being arrested and transported during a nighttime Houston operation. (ICE ERO Houston)
Before the operation began, Breitbart spoke with ICE ERO Houston Field Office Director Bret Bradford, who expressed his pride in the team on Saturday night. “These men and women all volunteered to work this new nighttime operation,” the director said. “They were out on the streets of Houston early Saturday morning to work their regular shift and then volunteered to come back out tonight for this pilot op.”
The team consisted of Houston ERO officers, who, along with CBP officers and Border Patrol agents, teamed up to carry out the first nighttime operation in Houston. Bradford credited Adams’ leadership, as he quickly assembled the manpower and resources to make this happen.
Adams explained that they want to send a message to the criminal alien population in the Houston area that ICE is a 24-7 operation.
One ICE ERO official who recently returned from a temporary deployment to Chicago told Breitbart they have observed a massive upswing in the number of illegal aliens who violently resist arrest. They blamed the rhetoric that is spread by elected officials in other parts of the country, depicting officers and agents as Gestapo, Nazis, kidnappers, and other dehumanizing labels.
Despite this, Adams highlighted the compassion of their agents and the personal connection many officers have to the immigration process. He revealed that his own wife is a naturalized Mexican national. “These are empathetic professionals who understand the immigration process,” he said.
“If you were to talk to a lot of these guys, especially in highly diverse cities, Miami, Tampa, things like that, a lot of us have gone through the process with our spouses,” he continued. “So we know the whole gamut of what it takes to become a citizen.”
ICE officials hope to expand partnerships with local law enforcement agencies, including Harris County, Houston Police, and other task force partners, with the ultimate goal of comprehensive crime reduction.
“We can be a force multiplier to these local and state agencies,” Adams stated. “We can provide additional manpower to target high-crime areas. While they do their thing, we can do ours and everyone goes home safely.”
In the two days before this nighttime op, ERO Houston teams arrested about 200 criminal aliens in the infamous Colony Ridge community located northeast of Houston, officials stated. They also seized a large quantity of illicit drugs during that operation.
This operation ended at about 1 a.m. Sunday morning. About nine hours later, the teams reassembled and went back out on the streets. On Monday, they were back out again, intending to identify, find, and remove criminal aliens to make Houston a safer city, officials said.
Bob Price is the Breitbart Texas-Border team’s associate editor and senior news contributor. He is an original member of the Breitbart Texas team. Price is a regular panelist on Fox 26 Houston’s What’s Your Point? Sunday morning talk show. He also serves as president of Blue Wonder Gun Care Products.
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