Page 41 - Bloomberg Businessweek July 2018

Bloomberg Businessweek July 2, 2018
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C For Prisonville
32 A Second Chance

S of Raymondville and then as its mayor, Gilbert

● An ailing Texas town cheers
the reopening of a privately run Gonzales had witnessed neighboring counties build
roads, schools, and housing, while his own econ-
detention facility for immigrants omy foundered amid floods, illicit gambling, ram-
pant drug use, and fleeing industries.
Three years on, Willacy County’s 11 percent job-
less rate is almost triple the state average. Its farm-
Joel Hernandez was promoted to sergeant by private ers face the worst drought in decades. The two other
prison operator Management & Training Corp. prisons in Raymondville—known in the region as
days before a riot broke out in 2015 at the Willacy Prisonville—remain the biggest employers in a town
County Correctional Center in South Texas where excited about the prospects of a new Tractor Supply
he worked. He escaped with his life—but not his Co. store. But change is coming: President Trump
job. Within months of the fiery uproar, the facil- and his hard-line immigration agenda have revived
ity, a prison in Raymondville for immigrants await- the Willacy County Correctional Center.
ing deportation, was shut down. About 400 MTC Trump, who describes the entry of undocu-
employees, or 6 percent of the town’s entire work- mented immigrants as an invasion, made expand-
force, lost their jobs. Less than a month later the ing the country’s detention capacity a priority. He PHOTOGRAPHS BY JARED MOOSSY FOR BLOOMBERG BUSINESSWEEK
Obama administration promised the federal govern- signed an executive order four days after his inau-
ment would stop contracting immigration detention guration that enhanced federal agencies’ ability
to private operators, including MTC. to detain some of the 11 million undocumented
The decision was a severe blow to this remote immigrants in the U.S. He also called for a 40 per-
area of the Rio Grande Valley, the poorest pocket cent budget increase for Immigration and Customs
Edited by
Matthew Philips of Texas. For two decades, first as a resident Enforcement in 2019, to $8.8 billion, earmarking