EAGLE PASS, Texas — Federal and local officials here are impressed with Mexico’s new effort to slow down the rate at which Central American migrants are allowed to cross into Texas.

Mexico has opened up a facility in the Mexican border town of Piedras Negras to house and feed migrants while they await to file their U.S. asylum claim. Mexico is also paying for hundreds of federal police to stand guard outside the facility’s fence and keep them from crossing into the U.S. — anyone caught trying to break out of the facility gets deported from Mexico.