LOS FRESNOS — An organization sheltering undocumented immigrant children has hired hundreds of workers months after the city’s second-largest employer shut down.
LOS FRESNOS — An organization sheltering undocumented immigrant children has hired hundreds of workers months after the city’s second-largest employer shut down.
Florida-based Comprehensive Health Services, which uses federal funds to house migrant children, has hired many employees laid off after International Educational Services, or IES, lost its federal contract in March, City Manager Mark Milum said yesterday.
Milum said Comprehensive Health Services has hired about two-thirds of about 800 employees laid off after IES closed.
IES, a locally-based nonprofit organization which closed after 30 years here, was the city’s second-largest employer, behind the Los Fresnos school district, Milum said.
“ A lot of folks who worked there before are back to work,” Milum said.
Milum said Comprehensive Health Services is filling two former IES shelters with migrant children.
“ It looks like they’ve filled the two shelters here,” Milum said. “It seems they’re operational now.”
Milum said Comprehensive Health Services is also using some of IES’ former offices.
“ They don’t need all the office space IES had,” he said.
Earlier this week, San Benito city commissioners granted Comprehensive Health Services its request for a permit to open an assisted living facility at 299 East Heywood St., a former IES site that once housed Borderland Calvary Chapel.
Organizations such as Comprehensive Health Services use federal funds to shelter undocumented immigrant children detained after crossing the U.S. border.
This year, numbers apparently show more children are crossing the border than last year.
From last October to July, a total of 41,347 undocumented immigrant children were traveling without parents or guardians when they were detained along the Southwest border, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
Of that number, 19,331 were detained along the Rio Grande Valley.
Last year, a total of 35,487 unaccompanied children were detained along the Southwest border, with 21,123 of those apprehended in the Valley.
In 2000, arrests along the U.S.-Mexico border reached a record high of 1.6 million. The numbers indicated more undocumented immigrants were crossing the border, so the federal government took new enforcement steps, including doubling the number of Border Patrol agents.
Robert Flores, a representative of Comprehensive Health Services, did not immediately respond to a request for the organization’s employment plans.
Gail Hart, the organization’s spokeswoman, referred questions to federal officials in Washington, D.C.
Comprehensive Health Services is also expanding outside of town.
The reason behind the closure of IES, whose federal grant was not renewed, remains unclear.
IES, with facilities across Cameron County, including Harlingen, Los Fresnos and Brownsville, had operated since 1988.
