West Texas Feds Pile On 292 More Immigration Cases in a Single Week

Federal prosecutors in San Antonio added 292 new immigration and immigration-related criminal cases to the docket in the Western District of Texas between August 7 and August 13, continuing a weekly filing pace that has held above 250 cases for more than a month. The tally includes alien smuggling and harboring charges, along with at least one defendant with a violent criminal history who had already been deported once.

U.S. Attorney Justin R. Simmons announced the figures, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Texas. Among the cases filed on August 14, Mexican national Marco Antonio Dominguez-Barranco was charged with alien smuggling after allegedly presenting a false U.S. passport at El Paso's Paso Del Norte Port of Entry in an attempt to transport two minors to Denver. In a separate case, U.S. citizen Magdalena Lachica was charged with harboring 14 people who were in the country illegally inside a rented residence, per the same office.

The office also flagged the case of Erick Manuel Martinez-Mendez, a Cuban national charged with using false Texas identification to enter the country. Martinez-Mendez was previously removed from the U.S. in November 2025 and carries prior convictions for armed kidnapping and home invasion, for which he served a 17-year prison sentence, the office said. The U.S. Attorney WDTX account, which posted the announcement using the hashtag #OperationTakeBackAmerica, is the official channel for the office based in San Antonio.

A Weekly Pace That Keeps Climbing

The 292 cases filed this cycle follow 271 cases filed from July 31 to August 6 and 250 cases filed during the final week of July, according to the same office's releases. That steady climb reflects a sustained enforcement push rather than a one-time spike, with weekly filing volumes in the district consistently landing between 250 and 300 cases since the middle of 2025.

The pace traces back to a March 2025 Department of Justice memorandum in which Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche formally established Operation Take Back America, redirecting resources from the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force and Project Safe Neighborhoods program toward border prosecutions, cartel dismantling, and immigration enforcement. Simmons, who has led the district as interim U.S. Attorney since Attorney General Pamela Bondi appointed him in May 2025, previously worked as a San Antonio-based Assistant U.S. Attorney focused on human trafficking and financial crimes starting in December 2020.

A District Stretched Across 68 Counties

The Western District of Texas covers 68 counties across nearly 93,000 square miles, an area that includes three of the state's five largest cities — San Antonio, Austin, and El Paso — and 660 miles of border with Mexico, serving an estimated 7.6 million residents. That geography helps explain why the district absorbs such a large share of the nation's border prosecutions; statewide, Texas's Southern and Western Districts together recorded 25,506 criminal immigration cases in 2025, a new statewide record, according to Texas Signal.

That volume has not come without strain on the court system itself. Federal courts in El Paso alone saw more than 300 habeas corpus petitions filed by early 2026, as detained non-citizens challenged their pre-removal custody, according to KVIA News. The station's reporting points to mounting pressure on West Texas federal judges, detention facilities, and public defense resources as the weekly case surges continue.

What Defendants Are Facing

The charges filed in this latest batch carry significant statutory penalties. Human smuggling and harboring offenses under 8 U.S.C. § 1324 can bring up to 10 years in prison, or up to life imprisonment if the offense results in a death, according to the U.S. Sentencing Commission. Illegal reentry after removal under 8 U.S.C. § 1326 carries felony enhancements for defendants with prior criminal records, a provision that would apply to cases like Martinez-Mendez's.

This is not the first time San Antonio's federal docket has swelled under the operation. Hoodline previously reported on a 251-case week in March, and a separate week in the same district produced 413 filings in May 2025, underscoring how consistently the numbers have run high since the policy took effect.