The federal government infused $5.2 million in funding to allow Pima County to continue aiding asylum seekers who need additional medical care to fight the spread of COVID-19, the county announced Friday.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Emergency Food and Shelter Program (EFSP) granted the county’s funds to continue its work aiding asylum seekers who have crossed the U.S. border and are being processed and sheltered in Tucson, according to a news release Friday from the county.
The funding is to help to mitigate the cost of trying to stop the spread of COVID-19. It’s an expense that has already reached nearly $20 million. The Pima County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday approved using $2.75 million in state funding for the effort.
The $5.2 million in additional federal funding is expected to last the county “through mid-April 2024,” the release said.
The need for additional funding from the federal government was the subject of a joint opinion piece in the Jan. 7 edition of the Arizona Daily Star, written by District 5 Supervisor and Board Chair Adelita Grijalva and Tucson Mayor Regina Romero.
“Neither the County nor the City can afford to use local tax dollars to continue safely assisting asylum seekers on their journey once federal funds are exhausted; this is a federal responsibility,” the pair wrote.
“We have proven that local agencies can manage and prevent the harmful effects of federal immigration policy if Congress provides the funding,” they wrote.
Pima County Administrator Jan Lesher called the work done by the county and other local agencies the past five years “frankly heroic.”
“It has prevented a humanitarian crisis and kept our streets safer. But we can’t do it by ourselves,” Lesher said in a written statement. “We must work with our partners in the federal government toward a sustainable solution, and this is a productive step in that direction.”
