Overview
- The multi-agency operation ran last week at a western Oklahoma I-40 port of entry near the Texas line with roughly 20 troopers working alongside ICE and the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics.
- Officials say 120 people were taken into custody and transferred to ICE after more than 500 encounters, with about 90 of those detained identified as commercial truck drivers.
- DPS reported detainees came from about 18 countries and that many truckers held commercial driver’s licenses from California (44), New York (14), Pennsylvania (12) and Illinois (11).
- Authorities impounded the trucks and cargo, and companies are responsible for fines and retrieving their vehicles and merchandise.
- Most detainees were processed through ICE offices in Oklahoma City or Tulsa before transfer to holding facilities in Oklahoma or Texas, and Gov. Kevin Stitt cast the effort as moving noncitizen offenders into deportation proceedings.