I'm Paul Rodriguez, president and CEO of Valley Land Title Company. We have offices in Mission, Edinburg, Weslaco, and McAllen. Our primary focus is Hidalgo County.
We are fortunate enough to do business with almost every lender, mortgage company, and everyone else involved in the real estate business.
And to support Mr. Haddad’s comments about activity on the construction side, I can tell you that we have seen, especially on the construction side, construction loans… and there are other banks, not just Lone Star that are very involved in the construction business… and they are seeing it. We've been seeing it in our numbers since the summer and certainly towards the end of the year, October, November, December, and especially towards the end of the year, those numbers have significantly dropped, I would say, by 30 to 40 percent of construction activity.
And these are all the banks, not just Lone Star National Bank. I have been meeting with, as I usually do, (many) bankers. Just last week, I was visiting with the CEO of another bank, very active, and he was telling me he had just gotten a call from one of his builders that they had 18 construction workers picked up on site, and so needless to say, that work on that deal just completely came to a halt. So these are real numbers, these are real people, and the impact is there. Thank you.
Editor’s Note: The above commentary was provided by Paul Rodriguez, president and CEO of Valley Land Title Company, at a symposium hosted by South Texas Builders Association. Titled the Immigration Enforcement & Construction Industry Impact Symposium, it was held at McAllen Convention Center on Jan. 14, 2026, and was attended by construction industry leaders from across the Texas-Mexico border region, bankers, U.S. Reps. Henry Cuellar and Monica De La Cruz, and McAllen Mayor Javier Villalobos.
