Closed Crystal City Correctional Center Records
Crystal City Correctional Center was a privately operated contract correctional facility at 6901 N. US 83. It closed on May 2, 2012. It is not a current Zavala County jail, state prison, federal prison, immigration detention center, locator, release office, or place to visit for records. Any page that presents it as operating is stale or incorrect.
The contemporaneous closure report anchors the date. Historical ICE datasets and older facility directories may continue to rank in search results because they describe an earlier period. A surviving address does not mean the former operator or a current agency maintains a desk there.
Start a present-day Zavala jail inquiry with the operating county jail, not the former center. For historical Crystal City custody, determine which jurisdiction held or sentenced the person. The Zavala County released inmates search path helps separate current local custody from state, federal, and immigration branches.
Identify the Historical Custody Agency
A contract building could hold people for more than one government system. The committing agency is the authority that placed or retained the person, and it is the best starting point for the record. Review an old court docket, commitment order, transfer paper, booking record, identification card, attorney file, or custody notice for an agency name and number.
- Fix the person's full historical name and any name variation used during confinement.
- Record the approximate admission and departure dates plus any booking, register, A-number, SID, or federal register number.
- Identify whether the placement came from ICE, USMS, BOP, a Texas agency, another state, or a local jurisdiction.
- Request the committing agency's custody history, transfer record, and release or discharge event.
- Use the court docket to confirm detention authority, sentence, acquittal, dismissal, or later supervision.
A name-only search can join the wrong records. Compare date of birth, court and cause number, agency identifier, and confinement dates. If the source agency remains unclear, state that limitation. Do not infer federal or immigration custody merely from the facility's former use.
Crystal City Correctional Center ICE Transfers
Historical ICE data show that Crystal City once held immigration populations. That history does not establish that ICE operates a Zavala County facility now. An old confinement should be traced through ICE records using the person's A-number, exact name, country of birth, dates, and any transfer destination in the surviving file.
The historical ICE facility dataset can establish system-level context for the former center. It is not a released-person locator. The current ICE Online Detainee Locator System covers present detainees and people released from ICE custody during the prior 60 days. That short post-release window cannot prove a departure from Crystal City many years ago.
For historical records, request existing ICE detention, transfer, and release information. Use a nine-digit A-number when known, with leading zeros where required. A county record saying someone was “released to ICE” documents an interagency transfer, not community release. The receiving ICE record must then show what happened in that system.
Note: Immigration-court proceedings and ICE detention custody are separate records, so one may not establish the event recorded by the other.
Why Crystal City Correctional Records Persist
The center's closure creates a specific local research trap. Search engines can surface old news, archived government spreadsheets, and copied facility directories without showing their original dates prominently. A reader may then mistake a valid historical reference for a current locator. The correct response is to preserve the old source as evidence of past use while labeling the facility closed everywhere.
Check the publication date, the date of the event, and whether the page identifies a current operator. Compare each result with the 2012 closure report. A later page that repeats the address but offers no current government operating source should not override that evidence. The former site also should not be confused with Zavala County Jail, which is the county's operating facility.
A historical address is useful only as a matching clue. It can connect a court document, transport record, or custody notice to the former building. It does not direct a current request. The record remains with the agency that created or received it, and different agencies may preserve different parts of the custody sequence.
Federal Crystal City Correctional Center Records
A person held for USMS before trial may not have a complete BOP record. The United States Marshals Service prisoner program manages federal prisoners from charging through acquittal or delivery after conviction and can use state, local, and private beds. USMS has no public released-person locator. Its ordinary public inquiry also does not provide prisoner personal histories, photographs, or arrival and departure times.
Use the federal court docket for detention, bond, release, acquittal, sentencing, and commitment orders. A focused USMS FOIA request can seek historical custody or transport records, subject to privacy and law-enforcement exceptions. Give a narrow date span, court case, and identifier rather than asking for broad research.
After commitment to the Bureau of Prisons, use the BOP Inmate Locator. It searches by federal identifier or name and can show a release date with Released or Not in BOP Custody. That language proves departure from BOP only. It does not establish that the person was never held by another agency, completed federal supervision, or physically departed from Crystal City on the same date.
DOJ's federal Victim Notification System is restricted to enrolled victims with credentials. It is not a public name-search workaround for an old Crystal City record.
Crystal City Correctional Center Record Fields
A useful historical request asks for events, not a broad narrative. Identify the person and period, then request existing admission, placement, transfer, and departure records. The government custodian may redact protected details or state that another agency owns part of the file. Request segregable public portions when that happens.
| Historical field | What it helps resolve |
|---|---|
| Agency identifier | Connects the person to ICE, USMS, BOP, Texas, or another jurisdiction. |
| Admission date and source | Shows when the agency placed the person and from which custodian. |
| Placement location | Connects the custody period to the former Crystal City facility. |
| Transfer or departure date | Dates the end of that facility placement. |
| Disposition or destination | Separates release, removal, court action, and transfer to another custodian. |
| Court case or commitment | Links physical custody with its legal authority. |
Preserve the source's terminology. “Transfer,” “released from ICE,” “released from BOP,” and “not in custody” have different scopes. A facility departure date may not equal the end of the agency's custody. If two records conflict, compare what each timestamp measures before treating either as an error.
Route Crystal City Correctional Center Records
There is no current Crystal City Correctional Center records desk. Do not use the old street address as a mail route. Send a request to the government office that created the sought record. The court keeps judicial instruments. ICE keeps immigration detention records. USMS keeps its pretrial custody and transport records. BOP keeps its federal sentence history. TDCJ keeps state institutional records.
Historical Record RoutingFacility status: closed May 2, 2012
Current facility telephone: none
Current release desk: none
Custodian: committing or receiving government agency
If a Texas state sentence is involved, use TDCJ information and public-records routes. A Zavala County conviction does not mean the person served the sentence at Crystal City. No operating TDCJ unit was identified in the county. The TDCJ statewide facilities record path covers those state custody events.
A historical Zavala inquiry may begin by separating the operating county jail from the closed center. The official page for Sheriff Eusevio Salinas identifies the current sheriff route, while the county Open Records page accepts focused requests for existing local records. A relevant court instrument belongs with the Zavala District Clerk when it arose in district court. None of those offices should be assumed to hold every private-contract, federal, or immigration record from the former center, so follow the committing agency named in the response.
Note: An old Crystal City address can help match a record, but it is never a valid present-day submission or contact route.
Verify Crystal City Correctional Center Departure
Build the historical sequence in layers. First, establish the authority and admission. Next, prove that the person was housed at Crystal City during the relevant period. Then identify the facility departure and destination. Finally, verify release or discharge from the receiving agency if custody continued. One “release” label should not be stretched across all four steps.
A BOP date, ICE event, court order, and transfer record can all differ without conflict. A judge may act before transport. A contract facility can record departure while the committing agency keeps custody. An agency may later discharge the person from a different location. Label each source and date: order, admission, facility departure, transfer acceptance, agency release, or supervision start.
- Facility departure
- The person left the former Crystal City building, possibly while custody continued.
- Agency release
- The named government custodian ended its detention or imprisonment status.
- Transfer
- Responsibility passed to another custodian, so it is not community release.
- Discharge
- A sentence or supervision status ended according to the responsible system's record.
When the evidence stops short, say so. A dated historical source can prove that the facility operated or held a class of detainees, but it cannot prove one person's custody without an identity-linked record.