Tornillo ‘tent city’ migrant shelters once again taken down

TORNILLO, Texas -- The year 2020 in Tornillo is starting pretty much the same way 2019 started in that small border town just east of Fabens in El Paso County.

On Monday came the dismantling of soft-sided shelters in Tornillo after they were erected last July.

Tornillo has a history of shelters being used by immigration enforcement offcials to house migrants.

The recent construction of shelters were built to house men and women. Construction workers removed the walls of one of the longest shelters, leaving only the roof.

When the shelters were erected, officials with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security told ABC-7 those soft-sided shelters would house as many as 2,500 migrants.

This is the second time in less than two years that soft-sided shelters were constructed in Tornillo to deal with the migrant surge, only to come back down.

You may recall soft-sided shelters in Tornillo, widely known as tent city, once housed unaccompanied migrant children. Those tents came down in January 2019.