Federal agents charged 254 people in one week. This was from September 11 to 17, 2026. All the cases are in South Texas courts. The courts cover the Southern District of Texas.
That area is huge. It covers 43 counties. More than 10 million people live there. It spans 44,000 square miles. It has offices in Houston, Galveston, Victoria, Corpus Christi, Brownsville, McAllen, and Laredo.
Most cases are about people who came back to the U.S. without permission. They had been sent home before. Coming back like this is called illegal reentry. It is a serious crime. Agents filed 176 of these charges.
Another 43 people crossed the border for the first time without permission. That is called illegal entry.
Agents charged 29 people with smuggling people. That means moving people across the border for cash. In 20 of those cases, migrants were the ones being moved. The rest of the cases are other charges. Some are for guns. Some are for other immigration rules.
Many agencies worked these cases together. That list has ICE, Border Patrol, the DEA, the FBI, the U.S. Marshals, and the ATF. State and local police helped too.
Two cases stand out. Arben Cima is from Albania. Agents say he came back near Mission, Texas. He had been sent home before. That was on March 12, 2022. Cima was also caught before with heroin, a hard drug. He now faces a charge for coming back illegally.
Hector Bartelemi Morales-Valle is from Honduras. Agents found him near Roma, Texas. He was caught before for burglary. That means breaking into a place to steal. If a jury finds him guilty, he could get up to 20 years in prison.
The U.S. Attorney's Office says public safety comes first. It says a safe border is a top goal too. It says this work has caught other lawbreakers as well. Some of them have serious records.
Everyone is presumed innocent until proved otherwise.
