Hey, let's talk about something big happening with Texas' border policies, especially if you live in or care about the Houston area. The state quietly closed a jail booking facility in Val Verde County, near Del Rio, last summer. This place was a key part of Governor Greg Abbott’s Operation Lone Star, that big push to send state troopers and Guard members to the Texas-Mexico border. You might remember Governor Abbott opened two such sites. He did this early in the Biden administration, saying it was a response to federal immigration policies. The idea was to handle the large number of people crossing illegally, which had hit record highs. At these facilities, officials were booking asylum-seekers on state charges. We're talking criminal trespassing, which is a misdemeanor and could get you up to a year in jail. And there was human smuggling, a much more serious felony. Thousands of young Americans actually faced these smuggling charges. Back in March of last year, the first facility, in Jim Hogg County, closed. Abbott linked that to former President Trump's return to the White House. But, if you look at the booking logs, border crossings were already going down for months before Trump's second term even started. Now, the closure of the Val Verde site, the one in Del Rio, wasn't publicly announced until recently. The Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) only confirmed it after questions came up about records showing no one had been booked there since May 2025. DPS spokesperson Sheridan Nolen said the facility closed in August 2025 because officers started booking people directly into local jails that month. Nolen stated that 'increased collaboration at the state and federal levels' made the border more secure. She added that the Val Verde facility, which was there to help local jails that were swamped with arrests, wasn't needed anymore. This is a big policy shift, and it’s important to understand the legal reasons behind it. Right now, DPS officers are still making about 100 arrests each week along the border. That's a lot, but it’s a much smaller number than what we saw during the Biden administration's peak, when local jails were seriously overwhelmed. Back then, Texas had to set up these special booking facilities and even hold migrants in state prisons to cope. So, what's next? DPS is moving a lot of its resources away from the immediate border. They're now sending troopers to work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) further inside Texas. Their mission is to arrest thousands of undocumented immigrants, sometimes hundreds of miles from the border itself. The state calls this 'Operation Lone Star 2.0,' showing a new focus on immigration enforcement inland. This new phase raises interesting legal questions. When state police work with federal agents on immigration arrests far from the border, it changes the game. You've got state resources enforcing what are essentially federal immigration laws. This could lead to more legal challenges regarding jurisdiction and the Fourth Amendment rights of individuals detained far from any border crossing point. The state Legislature, by the way, set aside a hefty $3.4 billion for border security in the current two-year budget, showing just how committed Texas is to these efforts, even as strategies change.