The Rio Grande Valley’s largest U.S. Customs and Border Protection processing facility for migrants, once the epicenter of the immigration debate in 2019, is set to reopen, though with significant upgrades, in the coming weeks.
Border Patrol’s Central Processing Center, also known as the Ursula facility since it is located on a McAllen street by the same name, was closed in November 2020 for renovations.
The project came at a time when immigration numbers would spike to record highs prompting the creation of additional processing space in Donna, leased by the city at $500,000 a year, and a separate temporary outdoor processing site under the Anzalduas International Bridge, known as TOPS.
CBP stated at the time that construction was intended to be complete and the site to be fully operational by early 2022, a schedule that appears to be on track.
Certain leaders already toured the facility last month, according to a source with knowledge of the visit.
The new center will look differently than the images that surfaced three years ago.
Migrant families and children corralled and overcrowded inside spaces lined by chain-linked fences were photographed in McAllen and referenced in a report compiled by the Office of Inspector General in July 2019.
Children, in particular, were held longer than the 72-hour deadline. Even adults were held in standing-room only conditions that made sleeping a challenge.
A year before those images were highlighted in the report, protestors gathered outside the same facility in 2018 to speak up against child separations, a policy that turned Democrats and Republicans against President Trump’s handling of migrants at the border through the zero tolerance policy enacted by then U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
The situation also attracted high-profile elected officials, celebrities and other personalities to the region in support of the families being separated at that time, and many in protest of the policy.
The Ursula facility was at the center of that attention, and considered by many to be inhumane accommodations for migrant families.
Now instead of chain-linked fencing, the facility was built to “create modern detention areas,” according to the previous CBP statement. “The new design will allow for updated accommodations which will greatly improve the operating efficiency of the center, as well as the welfare of individuals being processed.
Additionally, the facility is being designed to allow more space for individual interactions with representatives of nongovernmental organizations.
Room partitions will be designed and built which afford modest housing accommodations. The RGV CPC will also provide for a common recreation area for younger children.”
Once open, the capacity is expected to be close to 1,100 people. Though, the need for processing space has diminished from last year’s summer peak.
One metric for gauging the number of migrants processed by Border Patrol in its Rio Grande Valley sector is the number of immigrants released from their custody in McAllen. Those numbers declined from a monthly average of 943 in July to 191 by December 2020.Currently, the number of migrant apprehensions has slowed down overall compared to the activity seen last year when overcrowding, once again involving children and families, became the subject of another government report focusing in the Valley.
