Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on Tuesday raided a southeast Houston transportation business and stash house allegedly used by smugglers to hold illegal immigrants, authorities said.

The 9 a.m. raid at People Express in the 7200 block of Long Drive was one of several ICE operations around Houston targeting transportation companies, agency spokesman Gregory Palmore said.

ICE officials provided few details, saying they were waiting to release information until ICE Assistant Secretary John Morton announces results of the raids at a news conference today.

Palmore declined to disclose the number of people detained in the operations, the number of locations targeted or how the raids were connected.

Agents accompanied by a helicopter and an armored Department of Homeland Security vehicle swarmed the Long Drive site, pulling out an undisclosed number of suspected illegal immigrants from a stash house behind the storefront, authorities said. ICE agents also detained suspects who worked at the company, but declined to provide information on them.

Agents used a battering ram and knocked the barred front door to one side of the building off its hinges. Once ICE had cleared the buildings and loaded the suspected illegal immigrants into vans, animal control officers brought out pit bulls that were held behind the front office.

Alfredo Estrada, 61, who works about a block away at a furniture company, walked over to watch the raid unfold after spotting a government helicopter overhead and seeing marked government cars.

Estrada said the targeted business had been in operation for only a matter of months, but said he was not surprised to hear that it allegedly was involved in smuggling.

“There's a lot of that around here,” Estrada said.

At a second location nearby in the 7700 block of Park Place, agents conducted a similar raid on a business called Ramirez Transportation. One man was held outside the building Tuesday morning, but ICE officials would not say if other people were detained.