A Texas migrant processing facility is set to close after the number of arrests at the US-Mexico border hit a two-decade low, The Independent reports.
US Customs and Border Protection is expected to close the doors of the temporary Firefly facility in Eagle Pass, designed to quickly process migrants apprehended by the Border Patrol, a source told the New York Post.
The facility opened under the Biden administration in July 2022 to provide additional capacity for the Border Patrol’s Del Rio sector. The 153,000-square-foot, air-conditioned complex has a capacity for 1,000 people and replaced a smaller building that opened in Eagle Pass a year earlier.
Immigrants are being held in the complex, which is not a detention centre, before being turned over to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Sources at the Department of Homeland Security told The Post that other temporary centres are expected to close as well, although no timeline was given.
“They were always supposed to be temporary,” a CBP source added. “That temporary solution became four years.”
However, similar centres in El Paso and San Diego will remain open, sources told NewsNation on Wednesday.
Vice President J.D. Vance, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard took an aerial tour of the border by helicopter on Wednesday.
Their trip was aimed at promoting Donald Trump’s immigration measures and highlighting tougher immigration policies that the White House says have directly led to a decline in illegal crossings of the southern border since the president’s inauguration six weeks ago.
Invasion of US is OVER, Trump says
About 8,300 people have been apprehended in Trump’s first full month in office, according to a post by the president on the TruthSocial website published over the weekend. That put the number of border crossings at their lowest level since 2000.
“The Invasion of our Country is OVER,” Trump wrote on Truth Social on Saturday.
His claims were backed up by preliminary government data obtained by several news outlets.
Border Patrol made 21,593 arrests in January, down from 47,316 in December, with the White House praising the “Trump effect.” The number of arrests dropped sharply well before Trump took office from an all-time high of 250,000 in December 2023.
While Firefly is set to close, an operating base for 1,800 National Guard troops is being built in Eagle Pass, which will expand the soldiers’ presence in the city and allow military personnel to “operate more efficiently and effectively,” Governor Greg Abbott announced last month.
The Pentagon is sending an additional 2,500 to 3,000 troops to the southern border as the Trump administration continues to step up anti-immigration measures.
