Texas to close border site used to process arrested migrants

A pedestrian films a video of Texas National Guard soldiers repairing concertina wire along the U.S.-Mexico border on Feb. 29, 2024 in Brownsville. (Credit: Eli Hartman/The Texas Tribune)

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Texas plans to close one of two jail booking facilities it opened a few years ago along the U.S.-Mexico border as part of the state’s $11 billion border crackdown, Gov. Greg Abbott said Monday, adding that he has offered the site to the Trump administration.

The state opened the facility in Jim Hogg County in 2022 to book and magistrate people arrested on border-related crimes such as criminal trespass after he surged Department of Public Safety troopers to the border. A similar facility in Val Verde County remains open.

In a statement Monday, Abbott credited President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown with decreasing the number of border crossings — and making the facility’s planned closure in April possible.

“Thanks to President Trump, illegal border crossings are at all-time record lows and, unlike under President Joe Biden, the Trump Administration is quickly deporting illegal immigrants from our country,” said Governor Abbott. “As a result, there is no longer a need for Texas to maintain the jail booking facility in Jim Hogg County. Texas will continue to assist the Trump Administration in arresting, detaining, and deporting illegal immigrants.”

Border crossings tanked last summer when Biden implemented an executive order that widely curtailed asylum, forcing migrants to wait in Mexico until they secured an appointment with immigration authorities. Crossings have decreased further since Trump took office and implemented sweeping changes to immigration policy, including ending the use of a phone app that migrants utilized to secure the asylum appointments.

Abbott has long credited Operation Lone Star, which he launched in March 2021, for reductions in border crossings — though immigration analysts say that no one variable can explain migration patterns that are influenced by circumstances around the world like poverty and violence.

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