Galveston County has significantly expanded its role in federal immigration enforcement, entering into formal agreements with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that allow deputies and constables to apprehend and detain illegal immigrants as part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation effort.

The agreements position the county among the most deeply integrated Texas jurisdictions participating in ICE partnerships and explain increased arrests here of people who aren’t violent criminals.

Those arrests — often first exposed on social media — in turn are behind a growing unease making people afraid to drop off their children at schools or go to work for fear of being deported to countries they very well might never have been to.

Jail logs show an increase in immigration detain

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