CBP opens small tent city to handle influx of migrants at Texas border
TEXAS - A small tent city opened Tuesday night in the Texas border town of Donna to help process a growing number of people who’ve crossed the border illegally, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
CBP is giving a look at the brand new 45-acre temporary processing facility just outside of McAllen, releasing photos and video of the facility this week. Families who’ve crossed into Texas illegally, unaccompanied minors, and single adults are all being processed this week at the facility which was erected over the past 30 days. CBP says the facility is meant to handle overflow after the main processing facility in McAllen closed for renovations six months ago.
CBP officials say migrants may spend one or two nights there before either being deported or detained, including two ICE detention facilities in Conroe and one in Houston, or they’ll be released with a "notice to appear."
MORE IMMIGRATION REPORTS FROM FOX 26 NEWS
"Meaning you have to appear before an immigration judge who will decide if you have a case to stay in the United States or not," said Ali Al Sudani, chief of staff at Interfaith Ministries, one of the Houston organizations that help asylum seekers who’ve crossed the border from Mexico and have been served a notice to appear.
"We refer them if they need mental health if they have other case management needs, and we refer them to an immigration attorney to review their case," said Al Sudani.
CBP tells FOX 26 if the person processing through that tent city is a child, they’re connected with the Office of Refugee Resettlement which works to find the child a sponsor in the U.S.
Many of those children end up in shelters in Houston. Southwest Key has three Houston area shelters for immigrant children, and tells FOX 26 they’ve seen an increase in the number of children coming to their shelters in recent months.
"This situation is not new," said Al Sudani. "For the last ten years, we have these waves of migrants."
Their ability to process migrants has shrank drastically due to COVID-19 regulations. They’re now only processing migrants at 25 percent of their normal capacity. The new tent city is aimed at processing 1,000 people at a time, but during the pandemic the plan to process just 250 people at a time there, CBP told FOX 26.