Border crossings in Del Rio sector plunge to 32 a day, officials say

Border Patrol officials say the surge that once brought roughly 4,000 unlawful crossings a day into the Del Rio sector has fallen to just 32 a day in 2026, a drop that is already showing up in Val Verde County as Texas has quietly shut a booking facility opened for the earlier crisis.

The Del Rio sector stretches across 245 miles of the Rio Grande River and Lake Amistad and covers about 55,063 square miles of Texas across 47 counties. Border Patrol has operated in the area since July 1, 1924, but the pressure it faced in late 2023 was unlike anything local agents had seen in years.

In December 2023, U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported 249,785 southwest border encounters between ports of entry for the month. By February 2025, that number had fallen to 8,347 southwest border apprehensions, less than 300 a day, a 71% drop from January 2025 and a 94% drop from February 2024. Then-Del Rio sector chief Jason D. Owens said in July 2024 that the sector had been averaging below 320 crossings a day on a seven-day average, already well below the heights of the previous winter.

Acting Del Rio sector chief Milton Moreno said in February 2025 that Eagle Pass was seeing fewer than 50 crossings per day. Moreno credited new federal policies, additional state and federal resources, and cooperation with Mexican authorities, including the deployment of 10,000 soldiers along the border under an agreement originally made during the Trump administration. He also warned that smugglers still search for gaps and the path of least resistance.

The changing numbers have eased some of the strain on Border Patrol agents and nearby communities, but the region is still carrying the imprint of the surge. Texas National Guard units had reinforced border areas with shipping containers and razor wire, and Texas later closed a Val Verde County booking facility tied to Operation Lone Star after it had not processed anyone for months.

For Val Verde County, that closure is one of the clearest signs that daily life along the border has changed. The question now is not whether the surge ended, but whether the quiet that followed will hold in a corridor that has been central to border enforcement for more than a century.