A new funding source may help Pima County to narrowly avoid unsheltered “street releases” of asylum seekers in Tucson — a situation local officials have been able to stave off so far, despite an unprecedented volume of migrant arrivals in the southern border’s Tucson sector.
The state has confirmed that funds allocated to certain health-related services can also be used to support migrant-aid services provided to migrants whom the Border Patrol has released as legal asylum seekers, county officials said Thursday.
County Administrator Jan Lesher advised the Board of Supervisors, in a memo sent late Thursday, that state health officials have approved funding from the state’s “Immigrant Care and Testing program” to be used for medical screenings and care of asylum seekers. That will “mitigate the emergent public health threat” posed by unsheltered street releases, she wrote.
The new state funding will total at least $1 million, but the county is talking with the state about further funding options, said Mark Evans, Pima County spokesman.
“The additional funding will still not be enough to guarantee no unsheltered street releases if LPAS (legally processed asylum seeker) releases continue at the historic rates we are experiencing currently, which is often exceeding 1,100 a day,” Lesher wrote.
County Health Director Dr. Terry Cullen is seeking a declaration of a public health emergency in anticipation of unsheltered street releases, the memo said.
Lesher said she’s asked all county departments overseeing migrant-related contracts to look for ways to cut costs.
One cost-cutting option under consideration is a switch from three hot meals a day for asylum seekers to military-style MREs, “meals ready-to-eat,” at the Casa Alitas shelter, Evans said.
“That would be much, much cheaper, but still provide a full day’s worth of nutritional value and calories,” he said. “That way we’d stretch out the (FEMA Shelter and Services Program) funds as far as we possibly can.”
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Record releases
On Thursday alone, the Border Patrol released an estimated 2,000 asylum seekers to Pima, Santa Cruz and Cochise counties, surpassing the previous daily record — just set on Wednesday — of 1,800, Evans said. Before Wednesday, the record was 1,700 releases in a day.
In the Lukeville area alone, migrant-aid workers reported more than 1,000 asylum seekers on Thursday surrendering to border agents and awaiting transport to processing stations.
In recent months humanitarian organizations like Casa Alitas have aided record numbers of legal asylum seekers, usually for one or two nights before the travelers join family in other parts of the U.S.
By the end of 2023, Tucson’s sheltering system will have aided 350,000 asylum seekers this year.
As the Border Patrol’s capacity is strained, it will release migrants without the usual level of advance coordination with non-governmental organizations, or NGOs, that care for them. That puts additional pressure on the almost maxed out shelter system in Southern Arizona.
If Casa Alitas reaches its capacity and if there’s no more funding for hotel rooms, the asylum seekers released by the Border Patrol will be left on the streets, in a situation known as “unsheltered street releases.”
Some migrants have the financial resources to secure their own transportation to family already in the U.S., without the aid of non-governmental organizations like Casa Alitas. But others, especially those who don’t speak English or Spanish, could be left in dangerous situations.
Funding transition
Funding through FEMA’s Emergency Food and Shelter Program was supposed to last through the end of this year, but it’s already on track to be exhausted this week, Evans said.
That would force the county to borrow from the county’s next phase of federal funding — $12 million in funding from FEMA’s Shelter and Services Program, set to begin in January — earlier than expected.
The SSP funds were supposed to last the county through next May. But the county’s “burn rate” — monthly spending — on migrant-aid services has been approaching $4 million, about double what it was in the first half of 2023, Evans said.
The SSP funding also comes with greater restrictions that will result in a 30% reduction in reimbursements for migrant-aid services here. That equates to caring for a maximum of 750 asylum seekers per day, as opposed to the more than 1,000 per day covered under the previous funding system.
If the county has to dip into SSP funds before January, that would mean Pima County could run out of federal support for its migrant-aid operations as early as February 2024.
“At the current rate we’re going, we keep pulling back how far out we can go (on current funding levels),” Evans said. “First it was May, then April, then March. Now we’re trying to make sure we can get to at least February.”
County officials are intensifying their lobbying of U.S. Congress, seeking more funding to support border communities’ humanitarian efforts for migrants, Lesher said.
But Lesher said the county must prepare for the worst.
“Since the Congress has yet to indicate whether it will continue to reimburse border communities for the cost of (asylum seeker) releases through 2024 and beyond, Pima County must prepare for the day when federal funding and all other sources of funding expire,” Lesher said in the memo.
“Therefore, I will be convening an ad hoc committee of key county staff and representatives from regional governments and nongovernmental organizations, to craft an innovative plan for the inevitable. The goal of the committee will be to come up with a plan to minimize the negative effects of unsheltered releases in our border communities at the lowest possible cost to local government budgets.”
Watch now: Pima County, City of Tucson and Casa Alitas officials held a press conference on May 19 to discuss how they’re working together to provide aid and shelter to a growing number of migrants entering the county after the end of Title 42. Video courtesy of Pima County.
Contact reporter Emily Bregel at [email protected]. On X, formerly Twitter: @EmilyBregel
