Community backlash has derailed a private company’s plans to build Texas’ third immigration detention center.
The Corpus Christi Caller-Times reports that when Jim Wells County commissioners didn’t approve the deal quickly enough and and asked Serco — a company that runs immigration detention centers in the U.K and Australia — for a second public hearing, the private prison operator declined.
“With the insecurity of our residents we didn’t want to move forward without having a town hall in San Diego,” County Judge Pedro “Pete” Treviño Jr. told the newspaper. “Unfortunately, Serco was under a time constraint.”
On June 6, Jim Wells County Commissioners Court authorized Treviño to negotiate with Serco. However, Immigrations and Customs Enforcement is still seeking proposals for a new detention center in South Texas. It just won’t be in Jim Wells County.
This article appears in Jun 1-7, 2016.
