Hundreds of border and immigration-related cases were filed in Arizona during the past week, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ).
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona brought immigration-related charges against 310 individuals from July 18 through July 24, the DOJ said in a July 24 statement.
Authorities charged 175 people for illegally entering the United States and another 114 for unlawfully reentering the country.
In addition, charges were filed against 21 people who allegedly smuggled illegal immigrants into Arizona.
One suspect was charged on July 20 with “transportation of an illegal alien for profit.” On July 19, Border Patrol agents found Rubicel Nunez-Sanchez driving a Ford F-150 near the U.S.–Mexican border in the San Rafael Valley in Arizona, a region frequently used by human smugglers.
When the agents ordered the driver to stop for inspection, Nunez-Sanchez allegedly failed to yield. He later pulled over, and five people got out and ran away, authorities said. The suspect drove away but was eventually stopped. Agents caught the five individuals, including several Mexican nationals, who were determined to be unlawfully in the United States.
The Epoch Times was unable to reach legal representatives for Nunez-Sanchez.
In another July 24 statement, the DOJ announced that federal prosecutors in the Western District of Texas filed 188 criminal cases from July 17 through July 23.
The charges involved suspected human smugglers and illegal immigrants with past convictions for violent crimes, sexual abuse, and multiple removals from the United States.
The cases filed in Arizona and Texas are part of Operation Take Back America, launched in March 2025 by then-Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche.
The operation aims to counter the entry of illegal immigrants into the United States, establish Homeland Security task forces to dismantle human smuggling and trafficking networks, and eliminate cartels and transnational criminal organizations.
Prosecutors from the Southern District of California filed 122 border-related cases for the most recent week, according to the DOJ. Charges included reentering the United States after deportation, importing controlled substances, and bringing in illegal immigrants for financial gain.
Fining Illegal Immigrants
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) recently announced that more than $84 billion in civil fines have been charged against illegal immigrants for their refusal to leave the United States. In total, 103,000 fines have been issued to such individuals since the beginning of the second Trump administration.
Meanwhile, Democrats are criticizing the Trump administration over the fining of illegal immigrants.
On July 17, Sens. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) raised their concerns in a letter to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche and Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.
They said that while the Immigration and Nationality Act and the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act allow authorities to impose fines on certain immigrants, the Trump administration has “abused” these authorities in a bid to frighten illegal immigrants.
In assessing these fines, the DOJ and DHS “appear to have abandoned critical safeguards that have long prevented law-abiding immigrants from being improperly targeted with unreasonable penalties,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter.
The policy of fines “does not appear intended to target the ‘worst of the worst,’ but rather to coerce law-abiding immigrants to leave the United States,” they said.
In June 2025, when DHS announced a streamlined process for fining illegal immigrants, then-Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin justified the fines.
“The law doesn’t enforce itself; there must be consequences for breaking it,” McLaughlin said.
President Donald Trump was making the government more effective and efficient at enforcing immigration laws, she said, adding that the penalty is another incentive for illegal immigrants to self-deport.
