Although a last-minute federal appropriations bill passed last week contains $650 million to support asylum-seekers passing through Tucson and Pima County, local officials don’t yet know when those federal funds will reach the programs they support.
“It is our expectation that in the coming weeks we will receive formal notice of additional federal funds that will be directed to Pima County in support of our operation,” Pima County Administrator Jan Lesher wrote in a memo Tuesday. “When that occurs we need to be prepared to immediately and seamlessly continue those services that have allowed us to prevent street releases without the use of General Fund support.”
The new funding to help local communities temporarily shelter and transport asylum-seekers comes after lobbying from the city, county, state and federal levels. Current funding runs out March 31.
Arizona’s U.S. senators Mark Kelly, a Democrat, and Kyrsten Sinema, an independent, wrote a letter together to the House and Senate committees on appropriations asking for $752 million.
Kelly released a statement calling the $650 million allocation a success. Sinema, who is a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, also released a statement on her website.
“As Washington partisans fail to secure the border, Arizona border communities pay the price for their inaction — shouldering the burden of a crisis they did not create. I’m proud to secure critical resources to support our border communities, reducing the number of migrant street releases and keeping Arizona families safe,” Sinema said in the release.
“Street releases” is jargon for the possibility of federal agents putting people on the streets rather than taking them to shelters or transportation hubs as they do now.
Pima County said in a press release that it “will continue to support the coalition of agencies providing temporary sheltering and transportation assistance to legally processed asylum seekers (LPAS) released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agencies in Pima, Santa Cruz, and Cochise counties.”
That coalition includes Catholic Community Services of Southern Arizona, which provides shelter, transportation, food and medical care to asylum-seekers. Migrants are legally processed at the U.S. border and are brought to the Casa Alitas Welcome Center for about 48 hours before moving on to parts of the country where they have family or support. The program has been funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
County staff are now planning for continued operations at Southern Arizona facilities, Lesher wrote in the memo.
“I have sufficient confidence in the federal reassurances of funding, that I have directed County staff to work with Catholic Community Services (CCS) to plan for continued operations at the Ajo and Drexel facilities beyond the end of this month. This includes providing notice to supporting contractors and vendors of our need for their continued services,” Lesher wrote.
Southern Arizona is seeing a larger number of migrants and people seeking asylum than any other region along the U.S.-México border.
The Border Patrol’s Tucson sector had the highest number of migrants crossing in the U.S. — 250,611 — from October through January. That’s about 50% more than the Del Rio sector in Texas and nearly 110% more than the San Diego sector in California, the regions with the next largest share of crossings, according to Customs and Border Protection statistics.
“I am immensely relieved that this new federal funding will continue to protect and assist asylum seekers following the legal process while they wait for their immigration court hearings,” Pima County Board of Supervisors Chair Adelita Grijalva said in the press release.
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