DOGE shuts Texas office responsible for building border wall

TEXAS – Newsweek reports that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has canceled the lease for the U.S. attorney’s office in Corpus Christi, leaving prosecutors racing to find a new workplace. The office handles cases from Border Patrol checkpoints near Falfurrias and Sarita, while its Civil Division oversees land condemnation proceedings for border wall construction. The sudden closure raises concerns about potential disruptions to legal operations tied to border security. Newsweek has contacted the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas. It remains unclear at this stage when exactly DOGE staffers scrapped the lease.

Prosecutors only learned of the decision on Wednesday. The Corpus Christi division operates out of One Shoreline Plaza, a twin-skyscraper office complex overlooking Corpus Christi Bay, just a few blocks south of the federal courthouse. According to The Hill, the U.S. Attorney’s Office remained in the building as of Tuesday morning. DOGE reported that it had terminated a 17,039-square-foot lease for the “Office of U.S. Attorneys” in Corpus Christi. The department listed the “Annual Lease Cost” at $409,689 and the “Total Savings” at $307,267. However, DOGE did not provide any explanation for the decision to terminate the lease. DOGE also reported terminating leases for approximately 2,600 square feet in McAllen and nearly 750 square feet in Brownsville. However, it did not specify which federal agencies would be impacted. Meanwhile, a former federal immigration judge who was recently laid off said that the DOGE has significantly worsened the immigration backlog by dismissing dozens of judges.