RAYMONDVILLE – Willacy County and the city of Raymondville are continuing to wait for answers about the future of the closed correctional facility.

Last week, CHANNEL 5 NEWS reported that Management and Training Corporation, or MTC, confirmed they are in talks with the county to reopen the Willacy County Detention Center. It was shut down two years ago and the county lost around 450 jobs.

County commissioner Eliberto Guerra said an announcement can be expected later this week about the building.

On Tuesday, the Trump administration issued guidance regarding immigration. It didn’t faze Guerra.

“I think this administration is a lot different than the last administration we had in the past, so I’m not surprised by it,” he said.

The guidance called for more detention of immigrants entering the country illegally. Guerra thinks this could lead to Immigration and Customs Enforcement as a new tenant for the prison building.

“They’re gonna need more facilities to hold all those prisoners. If they don’t release them, they need space to lock them up,” Guerra said.

He said the number of jobs created will depend on the amount of immigrants detained. Guerra sees potential growth for the local economy.

“It’s good for the local economy to try to get those jobs that were lost back in February of 2015,” the commissioner said.

Raymondville resident Joel Ponce said he thinks the crackdown on immigrants is unfair to people from Mexico who need to be here.

“There’s people from Mexico that’s been here and they got family here. They might be from Mexico but they got little ones that were born here in the states, and I don’t think it’s right to separate them,” he said.

Ponce said he doesn’t like President Trump but hopes his policies will affect Raymondville and Willacy County in a good way.

Ponce said that Raymondville needs jobs and the possibility of the correctional facility having a new tenant will be good for the local job picture.