As Pima County readies to receive what could be thousands of asylum seekers when Title 42 ends May 11, it’s preparing resources with the key goal of avoiding releasing incoming migrants on the streets.
The county is working with federal partners, but “May 11 is a day that is fairly frightening for some of us,” nonetheless, County Administrator Jan Lesher told the Board of Supervisors at its meeting Tuesday during a discussion of the end of Title 42.
Title 42 was enacted at the beginning of the pandemic and allows the federal government to immediately expel some migrants from the country. The policy is set to end on May 11 when the COVID-19 public health emergency will expire.
The average daily number of migrants entering Pima County ranged from 224 to 770 throughout 2022, but Border Patrol estimates place the number between 1,200 to 1,500 people per day when Title 42 ends.
“The philosophy that’s driving everything we’re doing now is that we’re saying there will not be street releases in this community. And if we say that, then that means we’re going to provide certain kinds of services,” Lesher said.
That means increasing trips from places like the Nogales Port of Entry and Border Patrol processing center on east Los Reales Road to the Casa Alitas Welcome Center run by Catholic Community Services that provides short-term shelter to migrants. The county also coordinates transportation from the welcome center to migrant shelter services in Phoenix.
Asylum seekers typically stay at shelters in Tucson for a few days, enough time to arrange transportation to other cities where they can live with relatives and friends while their asylum claims are processed.
Shane Clark, director of Pima County’s Office of Emergency Management, has been working closely with federal and state officials to coordinate the county’s response to Title 42 ending. According to his latest weekly report, 2,556 asylum seekers were released from Border Patrol custody in Pima County from April 20 to 26th, which averaged 365 people a day. Those numbers included 1,127 single adults and 508 families.
Even while Title 42 has been in place, the county has come “dangerously close” to street releases but managed to find shelter for asylum seekers in hotel rooms. Regardless, Lesher said the county is prepared for May 11.
To prepare for Title 42’s end, the county leased a new location on Tucson’s south side on West Drexel Road near Interstate 19 to house migrants in partnership with Catholic Community Services that will have capacity for about 400 people. In addition to the Casa Alitas Welcome Center and Drexel sites, the county is using three hotels to house migrants as needed.
“Looking at the Drexel facility as an example … the reality is, there may be 150 or 300 cots, it will hold however many it’s going to need to hold at some point, if that’s people sleeping on the floors or something. That is certainly not our hope,” Lesher told the board on Tuesday.
A “uniquely federal program”
But as the county prepares for an increase in people coming across the border in coming weeks, the situation has unleashed concerns from county officials and the Board of Supervisors about the paradoxical issue of a local government taking on federal tasks.
Pima County is “fully aware that comprehensive immigration reform has been elusive, Deputy County Administrator Francisco Garcia testified at a U.S. Senate committee hearing on April 26. But Pima County doesn’t want to be, nor should it be, in the business of sheltering and caring for people seeking asylum in the United States. That should be a function of the federal government.”
Pima County has provided care to asylum seekers since 2019 when Catholic Community Services asked for help setting up temporary shelter, Garcia said. At the time, the county thought its involvement would last “just for a month or two.”
Instead, Garcia testified, the county’s procurement and fleet services staff are still spending significant time securing contracts for asylum care and arranging transportation services instead of focusing on county-specific programs. The federal funding mechanism for the county to provide migrant services has also been a hindrance, Garcia said.
Since the summer of 2019, Pima County has spent more than $23 million on migrant services using funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Emergency Food and Shelter Program. However, the funding strategy doesn’t allow the county to plan more than three months at a time.
Lesher said the county knows it has federal funding to care for asylum seekers through June, and has “assurances that we will get the money from the federal government, but it’s not sitting in our checking account.”
“This is a uniquely federal program, and in effect, we’re doing some of the work of the federal government, ” she said. “That can continue as long as the federal government continues to pay for it.”
The county has passed through most of the federal funding to Catholic Community Services to provide aid and shelter and subcontracted with the city of Tucson to provide staffing and hotel capacity to receive asylum seekers.
Supervisor Steve Christy blamed the county’s willingness to aid asylum seekers as part of the reason it’s in its current position.
“We were a welcoming center because we were welcoming the federal money,” he said. “Now, for many of us who have been sounding the clarion call for a number of years now that this is a problem, … now I have to say I do feel a sense of vindication and relief that the Pima County administration is finally coming forth and admitting that we have a crisis.”
Supervisor Adelita Grijalva said it was in the county’s best interest to intervene in 2019, pointing to when Border Patrol released migrants in Ajo without warning local governments and nonprofits.
“I think we were just trying to make the most of a situation that we had in order to ensure the safety of all of our community,” she said.
Federal intervention
Garcia told the board that a return to stricter processing conditions under the transition to Title 8 immigration laws could be positive for the county’s ability to manage the end of Title 42. The rules impose a five-year ban on reentry if migrants don’t enter the U.S. legally through a port of entry. Migrants in central and northern Mexico are asked to use a mobile application, CBPOne, to schedule an appointment to apply for asylum.
The Department of Homeland Security is also opening regional processing centers in Colombia and Guatemala to “facilitate safe, orderly, humane, and lawful pathways from the Americas,” according to a fact sheet from the department.
“From a policy perspective, trying to assist asylum seekers as close to where they are I think is really key in being successful in delivering what is reasonable asylum policy,” Garcia said.
The Biden administration has confirmed it will deploy 1,500 active-duty troops to the southwest border to aid Border Patrol in processing a higher number of migrants entering the country.
“I believe that we will be better served two to three months down the road … the challenge for us will be what happens on May 12. All of us should be wary and all of us should be concerned,” Garcia said. “Our goal is to ensure the safety and security of the folks across Pima County by trying to assist these asylum seekers. That is, at the end of the day, what we are trying to do.”
Watch now: Pima County is preparing to receive an increased number of asylum seekers when Title 42 ends on May 11. Video courtesy of Pima County
