DHS Says ICE Arrested 121 People at Memphis Bar, One of the Largest Single-Day Raids of 2026

What happened

Around 1 a.m. on Sunday, August 31, federal and state agents swarmed El Corralón, a bar on Macon Road in Memphis's Berclair neighborhood, according to WKNO FM and its partner, the Institute for Public Service Reporting. Immigration and Customs Enforcement led the operation with Homeland Security Investigations and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, calling it a "multi-agency targeted enforcement operation," per an ICE statement to the Memphis Commercial Appeal.

On September 1, the Department of Homeland Security put a number on it: 121 people arrested in what it named Operation Corral Light, led by ICE's New Orleans field office. That's larger than the roughly 100 figure advocacy group Vecindarios901 initially reported and that Breitbart and Newsweek cited in their early coverage. Newsweek was careful to note the initial 100-plus figure had "not been independently verified by authorities" at the time it reported. Breitbart's original piece, sourced to WHBQ-TV, used the unverified 100 number and did not update with DHS's later, higher, official count.

The official case

DHS says the operation stemmed from federal and state warrants, and it publicly identified five of the 121 arrested, listing criminal histories including larceny, drug possession, domestic violence, DUI, assault, child endangerment and prostitution, according to the Epoch Times. Those named include Ricardo N. Rodriguez Arteaga, a Honduran national with a larceny conviction; Sergio Vieyra Torres of Mexico, with prior arrests for child endangerment and DUI; and Miguel Galeas Rodriguez of Honduras, with a cocaine possession conviction.

DHS Secretary Kristi Noem tied the raid to the administration's broader Memphis crackdown, according to the Epoch Times, which attributed comments about crime dropping in Memphis and the role of arresting and deporting illegal aliens to DHS leadership. Scott Ladwig, ICE's acting field office director for New Orleans, called the operation part of the administration's "highest priorities."

The raid fits into the Memphis Safe Task Force, created after a September 2025 presidential memorandum to address the city's violent crime, which FBI data for 2024 ranked highest per capita among major U.S. cities, roughly six times the national average. The task force had logged 10,000 arrests and recovered more than 1,700 illegal firearms by June, according to the Epoch Times.

DHS has not released a complete roster of the 121 people arrested or disclosed where all of them are currently held, according to wheninyourstate. Criminal histories for the other 116 remain unpublished.

What families and advocates describe

An employee at El Corralón, speaking anonymously to WKNO FM, described agents shouting "Hands up!" and corralling patrons onto the dance floor. "That's when many women and men began screaming, almost fainting, crying," she said. "Women were screaming for their children." She said she had to take in a close relative's four children, including a 2-year-old, after that relative was detained. The children's father had previously been deported.

Vecindarios901 says at least 16 children lost a parent in the raid and characterized it as the largest immigration operation in Memphis history. WKNO's analysis, drawing on data from the Institute for Public Service Reporting, found it to be the second-largest single-day ICE operation nationwide in 2026, behind a 157-person arrest in Florence, Arizona.

Memphis Mayor Paul Young said city police were not involved in planning the raid and only responded to direct traffic and crowd control after residents gathered outside, a point echoed by the Memphis Police Department to Action News 5, which said its officers made no arrests or detentions. "The people impacted by what happened this morning are our neighbors," Young said. "They are part of the Memphis community, and they deserve to be treated with dignity."

Activist group Free The 901 has called on Memphis businesses to boycott agents involved in the operation, and protesters gathered outside an AutoZone on Summer Avenue the evening of the raid, according to Ground News. The Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition condemned the operation, citing widespread fear in the community.

The open legal question

Immigration attorney Casey Bryant told local reporters two Tennessee Bureau of Investigation warrants were involved in the raid, one tied to illegal gambling machines and one to drug activity, per wheninyourstate. One of those state search warrants has become public, and its text authorized a search of El Corralón for the gambling investigation but did not mention immigration or authorize immigration detentions, according to wheninyourstate.

That leaves an unresolved question neither DHS nor TBI has publicly answered: how a state criminal warrant for gambling and drugs became the entry point for what DHS itself calls the second-largest immigration enforcement action of the year. Bryant called the scale of the operation "an order of magnitude bigger than what we've seen in the past" in Memphis.

DHS has said more information will be released as the investigation continues. Until it does, the identities, criminal histories, and current locations of 116 of the 121 people arrested remain undisclosed, and the families of those detained are left waiting.