The number of asylum seekers arriving at Tucson migrant shelters this month has plateaued, after reaching crisis levels earlier this summer. But a recent demographic shift from single adults to families has added stress to the ongoing relief effort, and an expected dip in federal funding has organizers and local officials on edge.
Pima County is spending about $2 million a month, reimbursed by the federal government, on shelter operations, hotel and transportation contracts, food, medical screenings and other expenses to safely care for asylum seekers released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
The county has federal funding through December and is anticipating $8.4 million to pay for services starting in January, said Mark Evans, Pima County spokesman. But at current spending levels, $8 million would last just four months, he said.
“When we get to April, that could become a day of reckoning for the people of Pima County,” Evans said.
Despite record heat, Tucson Sector Border Patrol encounters with migrants reached a 15-year high in July, and included a higher proportion of border crossers that were families rather than single adults, according to federal data released Friday.
In the Tucson Sector in July, the number of family members crossing the border between ports of entry was about 19,000, almost double the number in June.
So far this fiscal year, with two months still uncounted, Border Patrol’s Tucson sector has reported nearly 78,000 family encounters, compared with 17,000 in all of fiscal year 2022, said Ariel G. Ruiz Soto, senior policy analyst with the Washington, D.C.-based Migration Policy Institute.
“Families have ballooned in this sector in ways that we haven’t seen in the past,” he said.
In July, Tucson’s Casa Alitas shelter was receiving more than 800 migrating people a day.
Recent weeks have been calmer, said Teresa Cavendish, executive director of Casa Alitas, the main provider of short-term shelter for migrants in the area. On Thursday, Casa Alitas received about 400 people, and 350 of them were part of family units, she said.
The demographic shift to more families brings new challenges.
“We might have space suitable for single men, but not suitable for families,” she said. “We are constantly balancing our shelter space” to meet the evolving need.
Tucson record
Border agents encountered almost 40,000 undocumented people entering the country between official ports of entry in July — the highest monthly figure since 2008, according to CBP data. The number includes both people who are seeking to evade law enforcement and those who turn themselves in to Border Patrol agents in order to request asylum protection.
An additional 3,346 encounters took place at official ports of entry in the Tucson Sector, including people who secured one of the limited appointments available through the CBP One app to request asylum. Those who entered the U.S. with CBP One appointments typically make up a small portion of the asylum seekers arriving in Tucson, recently totaling about 70 in one day, Cavendish said.
Migrants whom border agents process as asylum seekers are released to migrant shelters in communities like Tucson, where they are usually quickly connected with sponsors or family in other cities to await their hearings. Most asylum seekers arriving in Tucson leave within 24 to 48 hours, Cavendish said.
Families can sometimes take longer, as their sponsors may not be able to afford transportation for all family members right away, Cavendish said.
“You might have a family of five, and the sponsor they’re going to can afford two (plane) tickets,” she said. “That’s where things become complicated, and we’re working toward a solution for these folks.”
Since May, shelter resources in Tucson have been able to manage a surge in asylum seekers only through close coordination with CBP and a network of hotels and shelters here, and in communities ranging from San Diego to New Mexico.
If Casa Alitas’ capacity is maxed out, Cavendish reaches out to the city of Tucson, which contracts with hotels for additional bed space to avoid CBP having to release migrants into the street. So far this month, Casa Alitas hasn’t required the city’s assistance, said Lane Mandle, chief of staff for the city.
Shift from Yuma
Pima County has received more than 200,000 asylum seekers since 2019.
The Tucson Sector has become one of the busiest on the southern border in recent months, as encounters in the Yuma Sector have declined, Cavendish said.
Yuma Sector encounters with Border Patrol have dropped from more than 15,000 in May to less than 7,000 in July, CBP data show.
The data show a greater diversity of migrants from countries other than Mexico and Central American crossing through the Tucson Sector, as the diverse population of border crossers in Yuma has declined.
The shift could also reflect routing decisions of smugglers responding to border enforcement patterns, said Ruiz Soto of the Migration Policy Institute. Ruiz Soto recently spent a month traveling the U.S.-Mexico border as part of research to understand how recent policy changes influenced migrant arrivals.
“If it’s becoming harder for people to cross through Yuma, then they’ll come through Tucson” instead, he said.
Smugglers use drones and sensors to try to determine where there may be gaps in border fencing, or to track when the border is less supervised in a particular area, Ruiz Soto said.
“When smugglers detect that it’s become harder to cross in one region, they move people to another region,” he said. “Border Patrol has counter intelligence to try to figure out what smugglers know, but it’s always a competition.”
‘Razor’s edge’
Despite the recent plateau, shelters have been stretched for months, Pima County’s Evans said.
“Since May, we’ve been on the razor’s edge,” he said.
The anticipated drop in federal funding has raised red flags locally and among Arizona’s congressional delegation.
Federal funding is transitioning from the FEMA Emergency Food and Shelter Program, which has funded relief efforts since 2019, to the FEMA Shelter and Services Program, or SSP funding, for the fiscal year that begins in October, Cavendish said.
“The funding was allocated by Congress to assist border shelters in receiving, processing, sheltering and decompressing the border,” she said. But its distribution had “some unpleasant surprises,” she said.
Of the nearly $300 million in the initial funding allocation, more than $100 million will go to East Coast cities. That’s compared with $24 million for Arizona, including the $8.4 million for Pima County. That’s less than half the previous federal allocation the county received, Cavendish said.
Interior communities need funding as well, but it shouldn’t come at the expense of front-line border communities, Cavendish said.
Last week Arizona’s U.S. senators Kyrsten Sinema and Mark Kelly sent a letter to U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas demanding more funds for border communities.
“For years, across multiple administrations, Arizona communities have been paying the price for Washington’s failures on the border and have been using their own limited resources to help manage migration influxes,” the letter said. “At a time when Arizona is experiencing an influx in migration, especially in remote areas of Arizona’s border during extreme heat weather, we need your agencies to immediately correct mistakes made with SSP and ensure Arizona receives the support and funding needed to manage this border crisis.”
For decades Democratic and Republican administrations alike have failed to enact comprehensive immigration reform, said Dr. Francisco Garcia, Pima County’s deputy county administrator. But now, Garcia says he sees a “silver lining.”
“There is more interest on the part of the (Arizona) congressional delegation than I have seen in a long time on this topic,” he said. “That is a bright spot for those of us who are on the front lines.”
National view
Border-wide, the total number of border crosses reached nearly 133,000 in July, up 33% from June’s total of nearly 100,000 but down 27% compared to July 2022.
July’s figure was also below the 170,000 encounters recorded in May, when the Biden administration’s new asylum restrictions were implemented in place of the pandemic-era Title 42 protocol.
Migration experts caution against attributing monthly fluctuations in migration flows to the success or failure of new border policies. Often it takes months to determine the long-term impact of a policy change, said Ruiz Soto of the Migration Policy Institute.
After the end of Title 42, migrants who had already traveled to the southern border were likely taking a “wait-and-see” approach before crossing, he said.
“Just as I think it wasn’t accurate to say a decrease in the numbers (in June) was completely due to the Biden policies, I don’t think we can say the increase in July is directly because of the failure of Biden policies,” Ruiz Soto said.
“It’s much more complicated than that. I think it’ll take at least a couple more months for us to evaluate whether the Biden policies had a positive or negative effect on the migration we see today.”
New rules
U.S. border policy has been in flux this year, first with the May 11 expiration of Title 42, which allowed border officials to rapidly turn back migrants arriving at the border on public health grounds, denying them the opportunity to seek asylum. U.S. officials turned back border crossers more than 2.8 million times under Title 42, The Associated Press reported.
In place of Title 42, the Biden administration added its own set of controversial asylum rules. The rules add stricter penalties to those attempting to cross between ports of entry and they also incentivize people to use legal pathways for migration, including the CBP One mobile app.
In July 44,700 people used the CBP One app to schedule appointments at ports of entry, according to CBP.
A July report from New York-based advocacy group Human Rights First said asylum seekers waiting for appointments through the CBP One app have faced violent attacks, including kidnapping and rape, by criminal groups.
‘Inconceivable’ hardship
The travelers received at Casa Alitas have faced “inconceivable” hardship, Cavendish said, both in their home countries and on their journeys to the border. They report death threats, fear of kidnapping or enslavement, and religious or political persecution, she said.
Many break down in tears when they are welcomed with respect at the shelter, Cavendish said.
“One-hundred percent of the people who come to us are traumatized,” she said. “They’ve been on the edge for so long and truly are not expecting kindness on any level.”
Policy and funding debates must not ignore the human reality of the migration crisis, Evans said.
“They’re trying to escape horrible circumstances and trying to make better lives for themselves and their families,” Evans said. “There are suffering human beings behind these numbers.”
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