Fabens business owner hopes Feds open new migrant facility in Tornillo
The Tornillo facility housing undocumented, unaccompanied migrant children closed in mid-January, but another tent facility could soon go up in the same area.
A restaurant owner told ABC-7 she was reaping the rewards from the previous facility and hopes another will open.
” I was doing very well, ” said Maria Elena Guerrero, owner of Nena’s Mexican restaurant in Fabens. The restaurant is just a couple of miles away from the site of where the facility for unaccompanied migrant children once stood near the Tornillo Port of Entry.
The former Tornillo tent facility employed hundreds of people who would venture to businesses in Fabens, including Nena’s Mexican restaurant.
” The armed men, the workers would come, ” said Guerrero, who added she lost more than 50 percent of her business once workers pulled out stakes. ” Business went down significantly, ” said the restauran owner.
Guerrero’s face lit up when she learned there is a possibility military-style tents could soon be erected to house hundreds, maybe thousands, of asylum seekers in Tornillo.
According to the New York times, the military would loan those tents to the Department of Homeland Security.
It was music to Guerrero’s ears: ” Hopefully they’ll return soon. Hopefully, they return rapidly because I imagine all our businesses need the clientale . ”
