PHOENIX - The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona filed immigration-related criminal charges against 331 individuals in a single week of enforcement operations ending Thursday, the Department of Justice announced, in one of the largest weekly caseloads reported under the nationwide Operation Take Back America initiative.
Of the 331 charged, 146 were illegal aliens who had unlawfully re-entered the United States after prior removal — a federal felony under 8 U.S.C. § 1326. Another 163 were charged with illegal entry. The office also filed 18 smuggling cases against 22 individuals accused of transporting illegal aliens into and within the district.
The cases were referred or supported by ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations, ICE Homeland Security Investigations, U.S. Border Patrol, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the FBI, the U.S. Marshals Service, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Among the defendants highlighted by prosecutors was Ismael Solis-Solis, charged with reentry of a removed alien. Solis-Solis had been removed from the United States in 2025 and carried a 1997 conviction for unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor in the Superior Court of California, Tulare County, for which he was sentenced to 270 days in prison followed by 36 months of probation. Joel Ibarra-Lara, also charged with illegal reentry, had been removed in 2009 and was convicted in 2001 of attempted possession of narcotics for sale in the Superior Court of Arizona, Maricopa County, receiving five years of supervised probation.
A third case involved Mario Alberto Varela, a U.S. citizen charged with transportation of an illegal alien. A Pinal County officer stopped Varela’s black Ford Expedition for suspended registration and, after conflicting statements from Varela and his three passengers, contacted U.S. Border Patrol, which determined the three passengers were aliens unlawfully present in the United States.
The District of New Mexico reported a parallel enforcement push in the same period. The U.S. Attorney’s Office there announced criminal charges for the two-week period ending Thursday, prosecuted in partnership with the El Paso Sector of U.S. Border Patrol and Homeland Security Investigations El Paso. Many defendants charged under 8 U.S.C. § 1326 in New Mexico had prior convictions for sexual misconduct with a minor, aggravated battery, drug trafficking, money laundering, aggravated carjacking, and alien smuggling. The District of New Mexico encompasses 33 counties and shares 180 miles of international border with Mexico.
Operation Take Back America is described by the Department of Justice as a nationwide initiative that marshals the full resources of the department to “repel the invasion of illegal immigration, achieve the total elimination of cartels and transnational criminal organizations, and protect our communities from the perpetrators of violent crime.” The initiative streamlines resources from the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces and Project Safe Neighborhood. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law, and initial proceedings in the Arizona cases are expected to continue in federal court in Phoenix in the coming weeks.