Hidalgo County Sheriff | The Texas Transnational Intelligence Center
The Hidalgo County Sheriff's Office has co-run an intelligence center with the McAllen Police Department and the state police since 2016. The Commissioners Court has renewed it four times and no county record says what it does.
At a glance
- Who runs it
- The Hidalgo County Sheriff's Office, the McAllen Police Department and the Texas Department of Public Safety, jointly [1]
- Since when
- 25 October 2016, when the Court approved a memorandum of understanding for its establishment and operation [1]
- Still running
- Yes. The Court approved a further interlocal cooperation contract on 5 August 2025 [5]
- What it costs Hidalgo County
- Not stated in any item the Court has approved for it, in ten years [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
- What it does
- Not stated. No item describes its function, the data it holds, what it can query or who may ask it for something [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
- How many people work in it
- Not stated in any county record [1]
- Software it uses
- Forensic Logic, LLC, under a subscription services agreement whose second amendment the Court approved in November 2019. No price is given [2]
How it happened
- Decision
The center is established
The Court approves a memorandum of understanding between the Sheriff's Office, the Texas Department of Public Safety and the McAllen Police Department for the establishment and operation of the Texas Transnational Intelligence Center. [1]
- Procurement
A software subscription, amended
The Court approves a second amendment to a Forensic Logic, LLC subscription services agreement between the center and the company, and authorizes the Sheriff to sign it. The item spells the center's name "Texas Transitional Intelligence Center" and states no price. [2]
- Decision
The first renewal
An interlocal cooperation contract for the continued operation of the center, between McAllen Police Department, the Department of Public Safety and the Sheriff's Office. [3]
- Decision
Renewed again
The same three parties, the same contract, approved unanimously and immediately before an item transferring ownership of a retiring police dog. [4]
- Decision
Renewed a third time
An interlocal cooperation agreement between the same three agencies, approved unanimously. [6]
- Decision
Renewed a fourth time
The most recent interlocal agreement the Court has approved for the center, carried unanimously. [5]
Hidalgo County has an intelligence center, and the Commissioners Court has voted on it six times in ten years without once being told what it is.
The agreement
On 25 October 2016 the Court approved a memorandum of understanding between the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office, the Texas Department of Public Safety and the McAllen Police Department “for the establishment and operation of the Texas Transnational Intelligence Center (TTIC)”. The item runs to one sentence. The attachments are listed as “LEGAL” and “TTIC MOU”. The vote was unanimous.
Since then the Court has approved an interlocal cooperation contract for the center’s continued operation four times: in June 2020, August 2021, April 2023 and August 2025. Each item names the same three agencies. Each authorizes the Sheriff to sign. Each passed unanimously, none drew a recorded question, and none states a price.
The software
In November 2019 the Court approved a second amendment to a subscription services agreement between the center and Forensic Logic, LLC, and authorized the Sheriff to sign it. A second amendment implies a first, and an original agreement before that; neither appears anywhere in the Court’s record from 2012 onward. The item states no price and does not say what the software does.
That item also gives the center a different name. It calls it the Texas Transitional Intelligence Center. Every other item in the county’s record calls it Transnational.
What a reader of the county’s record can and cannot learn
From the Commissioners Court’s own agendas and minutes, a resident can learn that the center exists, that their Sheriff co-runs it with a city police department and the state police, that it has been running for ten years, and that it uses software from a company called Forensic Logic.
They cannot learn what it does. No item describes its function. None says what data it holds, what systems it can query, who may ask it for something, how many people work in it, where it is, or what Hidalgo County pays toward it. The county’s plate readers, its SkyWatch towers and its Constables’ access to the state plate reader database all appear in the same record; whether any of that feeds this center is not stated either way.
The phrase “fusion center” appears in no Hidalgo County Commissioners Court document from 2012 to 2026. The center is only ever an interlocal agreement with a name.
Why it is here
This site’s test for a system is not whether it is controversial but whether the public record explains it. An arrangement that three law enforcement agencies have maintained for a decade, which the county’s own governing body has voted to continue four times, and which no document in that body’s record describes, is the clearest kind of gap there is.
Nothing here says the center does anything improper. It says that a resident who reads everything their Commissioners Court has published about it still does not know what was agreed to on their behalf.
What we do not know
- What the Texas Transnational Intelligence Center does, and what data it holds.
- What it costs Hidalgo County each year, and how many county employees work in it.
- Which databases it can query, and whether plate reader data from the Sheriff's Office or the Constables reaches it.
- What Forensic Logic's software does for it, at what price, and whether the subscription is still running.
- Who can ask the center for information, and whether any federal agency is a participant.
- Whether it has a privacy policy, an audit, or any public reporting requirement.
What you can do
Show up
Systems like this one are approved by boards, councils and committees that meet in public. We have confirmed where each of them meets in Hidalgo County and how public comment works there.
How to show up in Hidalgo County →Protect yourself
Practical steps to shrink your personal data trail. Our guides publish at launch; until then, EFF's Surveillance Self-Defense is the best starting point.
Surveillance Self-Defense →Sources
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- 2.
- 3.
- 4. Hidalgo County Commissioners Court, minutes, 24 August 2021, item AI-82006, interlocal cooperation contract · Meeting record · · accessed
- 5. Hidalgo County Commissioners Court, minutes, 5 August 2025, item AI-100193, interlocal agreement · Meeting record · · accessed
- 6. Hidalgo County Commissioners Court, minutes, 18 April 2023, item AI-90426, interlocal cooperation agreement · Meeting record · · accessed
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