Dimmit County votes down proposed new family detention camp

The Dimmit County Commissioners Court voted Monday June 27 against a proposal to open a new facility to detain immigrant families for profit.

The South Carolina company Stratton Oilfields would have operated the 1000-bed facility in Carizzo Springs, which previously a “man camp” for oil field workers but now sits empty after the “oil bust.”

The vote is another strike against building another family detention camp in south Texas after Jim Wells County also unanimously rejected a proposal brought by British private prison corporation, Serco Inc. in July.