Willacy County Regional Detention Center — county monetizes idle jail via 50-yr lease to Hidalgo County, LaSalle Corrections, Raymondville TX · TX · 586 beds (up to 450 contracted for Hidalgo County use) · LaSalle Corrections (for Hidalgo County)

Overview

A separate facility from El Valle, located about half a mile away at 1601 Buffalo Drive. This is the ex-federal (USMS IGA) facility that Willacy County itself owns. When the Biden administration’s Executive Order 14006 (phasing out DOJ private prison contracts) ended MTC’s federal contract here in April 2022, the facility went dark. Rather than let it sit idle, Willacy County monetized it — the textbook Sabot-style pattern this KB tracks, except here the “customer” is a neighboring county government, not ICE directly.

Key Details

October 2022: Hidalgo County (TX) signed a 50-year lease with Willacy County to rent the facility, driven by overcrowding at Hidalgo’s own jail. Total lease cost over the life of the deal: $59.8 million.
Hidalgo County pays ~$3 million/year rent to Willacy County, and separately contracted LaSalle Corrections to operate/staff the facility for $13.9 million/year, an eight-year operating contract with the price escalating by roughly $500,000/year.
Capacity contracted: up to 450 inmates (Hidalgo County’s own justice-involved population — this is functioning as Hidalgo’s overflow jail, not primarily an ICE detention stream, though the underlying facility has USMS IGA history and Vera Institute data lists an “active” USMS IGA designation).
Renovations were completed and Hidalgo County made its final renovation payment by July 2024; the reopening timeline slipped from initial targets (tracked across multiple 2023-2024 local news stories) before inmate transfers began.
Sheriff/287(g) context: Willacy County Sheriff is Larry Spence. Under Texas Senate Bill 8 (effective Jan 1, 2026), all Texas sheriffs operating jails — including Willacy’s — must enter 287(g) agreements with ICE by December 2026 or face AG lawsuits. No confirmed public record found (as of this research pass) of Willacy County having already signed; this is worth a follow-up check closer to the December 2026 deadline.

Why It Matters

This is a clean example of the county-owned-infrastructure monetization pattern central to this KB’s thesis — except the buyer is a neighboring county government under fiscal pressure of its own, not a federal detention contractor. It shows the Sabot playbook’s core mechanic (idle county corrections real estate → long-term lease → private operator fills beds) operating without ICE as the direct counterparty, which is a variant worth tracking: county-to-county jail leasing as a lower-visibility path to the same outcome — beds filled, private operator paid, county revenue stabilized, and infrastructure kept “warm” for any future ICE pivot given Willacy’s existing USMS/IGSA history.

Detention Pipeline

Willacy County Regional Detention Center — county monetizes idle jail via 50-yr lease to Hidalgo County, LaSalle Corrections, Raymondville TX

Overview

Key Details

Why It Matters

Sources