Immigration in Texas doesn’t seem to be slowing, notes The LA Times. Almost 45,000 immigrants have crossed the border since October, most from Central America. The small Texas town of Alice has found itself reeling after the oil bust, and the influx of immigrants hasn’t helped the town’s fortunes. But now a British correctional company has offered itself up as an “unexpected savior.”
The company has offered to turn an abandoned nursing home into an immigrant detention center. The new facility would employ 200 local citizens.
But the solution turned out to be more complicatedl. A meeting was held, and the debate over the detention center revealed the deep wounds that the immigration issue has opened in this small community. Jim Wells County is sandwiched between heavily Republican and heavily Democratic areas of the state. The meeting erupted into divisiveness and rancor. In the end, the detention center plan was scuttled.
