966 laid off at children’s shelters

HARLINGEN — Barricades blocked off hallways as stunned employees heard they were losing jobs amid mass layoffs across Cameron County.

Southwest Key Programs, an Austin-based organization sheltering undocumented immigrant children, laid off 966 employees in Harlingen, San Benito and Brownsville on Thursday, the result of a dramatic drop in Central American children crossing the U.S. border.

The federal government, which funds the organization’s sheltering of the children, requested Southwest Key cut its staffing by 48 percent as a result of the plunge in the numbers of children without parents crossing the border, spokeswoman Cindy Casares said yesterday in a statement.

“Due to a significant decline in the amount of children coming across our country’s border in recent months, Southwest Key Programs has been instructed by the Office of Refugee Resettlement to reduce capacity at our Unaccompanied Children’s Services Program by 48 percent, which has resulted in the need to reduce our staffing,” Casares said.

In 2013, Southwest Key opened shelters in San Benito at the former Dolly Vinsant hospital and at the former Atrium Place Rehabilitation and Nursing Center at 502 E. Expressway 83.

Today, Southwest Key is San Benito’s second-largest employer, with about 367 employees.

In Brownsville, Southwest Key shelters children in a former Walmart store.

Yesterday, Southwest Key met with laid-off workers to discuss unemployment benefits at the Brownsville Event Center.

In the past three months, the number of children in Southwest Key’s shelters plunged from more than 3,000 to about 800, Juan Sanchez, the organization’s founder and president, said.

In October 2016, the U.S. Border Patrol apprehended 22,642 undocumented immigrant children in the Rio Grande Valley, the agency’s statistics show.

By April, that number was down to 3,941.

Southwest Key did not release information on the number of employees laid off at each of the three Cameron County locations.

Officials at BCFS, a San Antonio-based organization, and International Educational Services, or IES, with headquarters in Los Fresnos, could not be reached to comment on whether they faced similar layoffs.

BCFS shelters children in locations including Valley Baptist Mission Education Center in Harlingen.

Today, IES is Los Fresnos’ largest employer, City Manager Mark Milum said.

Since about 2012, the surge in Central American children entering the U.S. led the three organizations to expand operations, buying and renovating property across the area.

The numbers of children crossing the border sharply dropped off after the election of President Donald Trump, who vowed to deport undocumented immigrants and build a wall across the U.S.-Mexico border, immigration rights advocates said.

“Deportation and separation of children are big concerns with families. It’s something that holds them back,” said Sister Norma Pimentel, who helps run the Sacred Heart Humanitarian Center in McAllen.

Since 2015, nearly 3,000 undocumented immigrant children stopped at the center.

“They come because they fear for the life of their kids,” Pimentel said.

The numbers plunged after last November’s election, she said.

Organizations such as Southwest Key, BCFS and IES are part of a network known as the immigration industrial complex, said Rogelio Nuñez, executive director of Proyecto Libertad, an immigrant rights group in Harlingen.

“They’re making money off federal contracts to warehouse these kids,” Nuñez said.

Nuñez said such organizations help fuel much of the area’s economy, pumping money into food vendors and health care providers.

“It becomes a big industry,” Nuñez said.