EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – The first two airplane loads of migrants recently detained by Border Patrol agents in the Rio Grande Valley have arrived in El Paso.
A total of 115 international citizens arrived in the city between Monday and Tuesday and were taken to Border Patrol facilities for processing. Fifty of those individuals and families were released to Annunciation House shelter facilities, said Ruben Garcia, executive director of the El Paso nonprofit.
“The rest are still being processed. […] That’s why they’re being flown here. In the Rio Grande Valley the numbers surpassed the resources the Border Patrol has there. When they land, they have to be processed before they can be released,” Garcia said.
In a statement to KTSM and Border Report, U.S. Customs and Border Protection confirmed that some migrants encountered in the Rio Grande Valley – which includes McAllen, Harlingen and Brownsville – are being taken to other Texas cities.
“The Rio Grande Valley Sector on the Texas border with Mexico has seen an increase in encounters. In order to process individuals as safely and expeditiously as possible, U.S. Border Patrol in Laredo, Del Rio and El Paso Sectors are assisting RGV by processing these subjects at their respective processing centers,” the CBP statement said.
The agency says it’s trying to comply with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines even as the number of migrants coming to the border continues to rise. It also said it’s trying to mitigate delays in processing times and prevent long periods of detention to minimize potential COVID-19 exposure to its agents, the migrants themselves and host communities.
Once processed, qualifying migrants are taken out of CBP custody.
Garcia said the migrants coming to El Paso from South Texas haven’t been tested by Border Patrol, thus they will have to be tested at local shelters.
“Everybody gets tested (at the shelter),” he said, adding that he’s working with the local Office of Emergency Management to that end.
The nonprofit’s main shelter can hold up to 300 migrants at a time, with most new arrivals staying between one and four days prior to leaving El Paso by bus or airplane to join relatives in the interior of the United States. In addition to the new arrivals from South Texas, Annunciation House is hosting 50 asylum-seekers returning daily from Juarez after they are taken out of the controversial Migrant Protection Protocols (MPP) program, which made them wait the outcome of their case in Mexico for the past two years.
The nonprofit has already contracted with one outside hotel, though on Tuesday it wasn’t clear if migrants had been sent there from the shelter.
Garcia said Annunciation House is short on volunteers because of the ramp-up “from one day to the next.”
“We will eventually have the volunteers we are comfortable with, but right now we are short,” he said.
