Val Verde Temporary Processing Facility Closed After Serving as Operation Lone Star Hub

On March 25, 2026, state officials confirmed that the Val Verde Temporary Processing Facility near Del Rio has been shut down after operating as a booking center for Operation Lone Star.

Texas authorities opened two such processing sites to support a surge of Texas Department of Public Safety troopers and State Guard personnel deployed along the more than 1,250 miles of the state’s border with Mexico. Internal booking logs indicate the Val Verde site recorded no new bookings after May 2025, and officials say the location was formally closed in August 2025 as the department resumed placing inmates in local jails.

DPS spokesperson Sheridan Nolen confirmed the facility’s closure and characterized it as a response to increased coordination with federal partners. The sites had been used to process asylum-seeking migrants under state charges such as criminal trespassing, a misdemeanor carrying up to one year in jail, and human smuggling, a felony that officials applied in large numbers in prior operations. Officials have previously linked earlier facility closures to changing federal leadership, though internal data showed migrant crossings were already declining before those political changes.

According to state figures, DPS officers are averaging nearly 100 arrests per week along the Texas–Mexico border. The agency has shifted significant resources inland to assist federal immigration enforcement under what state leaders call “Operation Lone Star 2.0.” The Texas Legislature allocated about $3.4 billion for border security in the current two-year budget covering the current spending period.