If you’ve been watching the headlines lately, you’ve probably noticed a disturbing pattern: dangerous criminals keep turning up in Dallas — and they’re not first-time offenders.
In just the past few weeks, ICE arrested a twice-deported Honduran on Texas’s 10 Most Wanted list for child sex crimes, a Guatemalan national wanted for murder, and a group of Venezuelan men who tied up and pistol-whipped a Dallas woman during a home invasion. These are not isolated stories. They’re part of a bigger problem that Dallas leaders refuse to acknowledge.
Unlike neighboring counties like Tarrant, Collin, and Denton, Dallas refuses to join ICE’s 287(g) program. That program trains local jailers to flag and hold undocumented offenders for deportation. In those counties, violent repeat offenders are handed over before they get another chance to strike. In Dallas? They’re released, and ICE has to track them down later — if they’re lucky enough to catch them again.
ICE has made it clear: non-cooperative cities like Dallas make their job harder and our streets more dangerous. Federal agents are stuck re-arresting the same people again and again. Meanwhile, state data shows illegal immigrants in Texas face charges in more than 559,000 crimes, including 1,132 homicides and 6,566 sexual assaults. And it’s not just the crimes — assaults on ICE officers themselves are up 830% this year, with Dallas seeing its own bomb threat against the local ICE field office.
So here’s the question: why is Dallas the outlier? Why are our leaders more interested in reassuring undocumented residents that they won’t face enforcement than protecting families from repeat violent offenders?
Until City Hall decides that public safety comes first, Dallas will continue to be the city where criminals know they can slip through the cracks. And that should worry every single one of us.
