Exclusive interview: Raymondville shelter for migrant children to close, cutting more than 420 jobs

Hundreds of employees at a Raymondville shelter for unaccompanied immigrant minors will be laid off by mid-November, according to a state Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act letter filed in September. 

San Benito-based Christian nonprofit Sunny Glen Children’s Home expects to cut 424 jobs at its Raymondville site starting Nov. 17 — about half of its roughly 800 employees, the nonprofit’s top official told the Rio Grande Valley Business Journal on Monday.

It was not immediately clear if any unaccompanied children had been recently held at or transferred from the retrofitted Walmart in Raymondville.

Job cuts at the 250-bed shelter include youth care workers, medical providers, food service employees, and teachers, Sunny Glen Children’s Home CEO Chase Palmer said. 

Palmer said he lamented closing the center and losing employees, but he noted that other programs remain supported by grants.

“We are taking all the vacancies at those programs and making sure we’re filling those [with] employees who are losing their jobs in Raymondville and allowing them the opportunity to relocate,” Palmer said. “When the grant did not get renewed, that program simply goes away, but it doesn’t impact the nonprofit as a whole. We continue to do our work with youth from all over the state of Texas.” 

Federal funding ends

The nonprofit’s operation is winding down because its initial $63 million federal grant in 2019, which helped create the New Day Resiliency Center in Raymondville, was not renewed. Its funding is expected to run out by Oct. 31.

In 2017, developer Joaquin Spamer bought the former Walmart in Raymondville through Practical Developments LLC, an affiliated company of his McAllen-based Commodities Integrated Logistics (CIL). The store had closed the year before, and Spamer initially planned to use the building as a warehouse for the agricultural sector.

During fiscal year 2018, U.S. Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley sector apprehended 23,757 unaccompanied children. In 2019, CBP reported that the number increased by 45% to 34,523.

That same year, the former big box store underwent a $2.8 million renovation to become a children’s shelter. At the time, officials touted its economic impact on rural Willacy County, indicating the shelter’s annual payroll would range from $20 million to $24 million.

Over time, the federal grant supporting the operation grew to an estimated $127 million, records from the Office of Refugee Resettlement and the Department of Health and Human Services show.

However, recent federal enforcement data show the totals have since declined, and the property’s future remains unclear.

Palmer said the building lease is set to expire when the federal grant ends in October.

Future of the nonprofit

Sunny Glenn Children’s Home will continue to operate other social service centers, including the New Tomorrow Resiliency Center in La Feria, which is tied to contracts dating back to 2022 from the Office of Refugee Resettlement. 

The nonprofit also relies on state contracts that provide housing and social services to children in the Texas foster care system, as well as a local counseling center. It also runs an independent living program in Harlingen for foster youth who need support after aging out of the system.

“We have various programs that we operate and continue to run that are mainly funded through donations,” Palmer said.