Immigration and Street Releases

The meter is running on the end of federal funds for the immigrants who are staying at Casa Alitas and the other county shelter site. The estimate is those funds will run out around the end of March. Last week in San Diego they already saw their funding end. They’ve been seeing roughly 900 daily street releases of migrants ever since.

And I believe a faction in congress welcomes a chaotic scene in our major border cities. There’s an election coming and if they can point to disorder on the streets, it’ll be used as political ammunition. The truth is that about a month ago there was a bipartisan bill ready to be passed that included continued federal funding for migrant shelter costs. The Trump wing of the Republican party killed the bill, and so here we are. There were some local stories on the issue that ran last week.

Crying ‘open borders’ is lazy political rhetoric. The issues surrounding this problem are complex. They include broken political systems in developing countries all over the world, severe poverty and violence in developing countries, our own immigration system that leaves people in this country for years pending the adjudication of their immigration and/or asylum claims, too few enforcement agents on the border and too few judges adjudicating the cases, and now a failure to fund the local efforts we’ve been engaged with while managing the logistics that are the fallout from this failed federal policy mix. Both parties have a foot in the fault poo on this issue.

When/if the funding runs out neither the city nor the county is in a position to pull the million dollars per week from our general funds that it has been costing to do the on-the-ground logistics for the migrants. We will still have the Casa Alitas shelter in operation under the management of Catholic Community Services (CCS.) They’ll keep running the place – with a capacity of around 150 people per day – after the funding runs out. They will rely on private donations of both moneys, and the provisions you’ve been bringing to the ward 6 office in support of this effort. Those needs continue to be lotions, hygiene products, warm clothing, gloves, ball caps, kids’ toys, sunscreen, and backpacks. We’re open M-F from 9am until 1pm. We appreciate the heart of Tucsonans willing to step towards these needs.

And we look forward to seeing some positive action on this from the congress in D.C., but keep in mind this border crisis is a choice congress has made through a multi-year long neglect of legislating solutions. All we’re trying to do at the local level is manage the logistics of the mess they’ve created.