SAN DIEGO — California is freeing up as much as $28 million to help immigrants arriving from Mexico and being released in the U.S. until their court dates, a sharp contrast from other border states that have emerged as foes of President Joe Biden’s immigration policies.
The funding, expected to last through June, comes as Biden unwinds former President Donald Trump’s policy to make asylum-seekers wait in Mexico until their court hearings. It will pay for hotel rooms for immigrants to quarantine during the coronavirus pandemic before going to their final destinations throughout the U.S.
Money also will go to Jewish Family Service of San Diego to provide food, transportation and help with travel logistics. The state will fund health services for the short stays, including COVID-19 testing.
Last week, the Biden administration began allowing people into the United States who had been forced to wait south of the border under Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy. On his first day, Biden suspended the program for new arrivals.
An estimated 26,000 people with active cases will be allowed into the U.S., with about 25 people released a day in San Diego.
“This is what happens when California and Washington are talking with each other instead of at each other,” said H.D. Palmer, spokesman for the California Department of Finance.
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The first asylum-seekers waiting in the Mexican border city of Matamoros, home to a migrant camp with squalid conditions, were processed for entry Thursday in Brownsville, Texas. Processing began Friday in El Paso, Texas.
At the same time, the U.S. is releasing more asylum-seekers who are not enrolled in “Remain in Mexico” into the country, as it did for hundreds of thousands of people before Trump foisted the responsibility of hosting asylum-seekers on Mexico in 2019.
While most people are quickly expelled without an opportunity to seek asylum under pandemic powers that Trump instituted and Biden kept in place, limited releases in the U.S. have raised financial and humanitarian concerns in some border cities.
“There’s no plan of action once Border Patrol releases migrants in city centres from being detained,” Bruno Lozano, mayor of the South Texas city of Del Rio, said in an interview.
Lozano posted a YouTube video last week calling on the Biden administration to stop releasing migrants during a winter storm that ravaged Texas, knocking out power and water for several days in many cities. The Border Patrol resumed releasing migrants in Del Rio on Feb. 20 after the cold passed.
Lozano said Friday that border agents have resumed releasing people in Del Rio and nearby cities. He noted that non-profit groups provide cellphones, food and clothing to people leaving border custody and called on federal authorities to ramp up vaccinations in border communities or provide hotel rooms where migrants who test positive can quarantine.
In Yuma, Arizona, Mayor Douglas Nicholls estimated that by the end of Thursday, some 230 migrants, including many families with children, had been released since Feb. 15. Many are dropped at a Greyhound bus stop outside a discount store in a rural area.
Nicholls wants state and federal officials to transport migrants to larger cities with more infrastructure and resources, as the federal government did during Trump’s presidency.
Texas has sent 10,000 rapid COVID-19 tests to Brownsville for arriving migrants. City spokesman Felipe Romero says the tests are administered at the local bus station and anyone who tests positive is told to isolate.
In El Paso, the Annunciation House shelter is receiving 25 immigrants daily from the Remain in Mexico program. The shelter expects releases to double in the coming weeks and perhaps reach 75 a day by the end of March, director Ruben Garcia said.
California has so far been the most generous with aid. Besides the new funding, it’s already spent nearly $12 million to help about 30,000 asylum-seekers at the border since Trump’s presidency.
With Biden in the White House, Arizona and Texas have emerged as chief critics of immigration policy, a position that California proudly took during the Trump years. Texas successfully sued to block Biden’s 100-day moratorium on deportations.
Texas and Arizona signed agreements with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in Trump’s final days that could delay any changes to immigration policy. The Biden administration has rejected them.
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Associated Press writers Nomaan Merchant in Houston and Anita Snow in Phoenix contributed to this report.
© 2021 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.
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Isn’t it great that the American taxpayer is paying for “welfare” for illegal aliens? The shows how much the politicians care for the American citizen. The American citizen, in the eyes of the politicians are trash.
We’re nothing more than Slaves to them, to coddle and pay the illegal invaders.
Like Biden send, he’s ending the “America First” policy. This is just 1 example. There will be many more.
It’s morphed into America last!
And so it begins…what’s a crock, these DemoRats are taking America down!
The day that big quake, we keep getting promised, WIPES COMMIEFORNIA out, and sends it into the ocean, can’t come soon enough!
Don’t be fooled that Bankrupt California Democrats are spending these Millions. ZIts coming out of the 1.9Trillion Biden COVID bill. You can’t get blood out of a turnip of cash out of a bankrupt state whose leaders just fell out of the Turnip truck and brains ended up as road kill.
How do you change—change the U.S. from a capitalist system’,
to Democrat Party government controlled socialistic society.
1. Healthcare — Control healthcare and you control the people
2. Welfare — Take control of every aspect of their lives (Food, Housing, and Income).
3. Education — Take control of what people read and listen to — take control of what children and young people learn in schools and colleges.
4. Religion — Remove the belief in the God from the Government and schools.
5. Class Warfare — Divide the people into the wealthy and the poor. This will cause more discontent and it will be easier to take from the wealthy and give to poor.
Until there are only the poor.
6. Debt — Increase the debt to an unsustainable level.
7. Gun Control — Remove the ability for the people to defend themselves from the Government. (“Socialist Democrat Party State”)
8. Poverty — Increase the poverty level as high as possible. Poor people are easier to control and will keep socialists in power if they are providing everything for them to live. Encourage, protect and support multi-millions of illegal immigrants who are poor, uneducated and disease ridden
Do these look like the tactics of the Democrat Party??
Read the constitution!! What is a citizen ?? Born or Naturalized and reside in a state. The constitution used the word and, not the word ” or” . So you can’t just move here and be a citizen. But the constitution says citizens are entitled to Privileges. What are privileges ?? Drivers license, voting , Representation and free education. Those illegals therefore are not entitled to our privileges. Democrats read the constitution. Also the census, everyone should be counted, but only the citizen count should be used for Determining Representatives in Congress.
These days, it seems to ME, that illegals have MORE RIGHTS and privileges as per our consitition, than WE CITIZENS do…
When my father arrived in this country (legally) he carried with him two suitcases. He went to live with his sponsor for a short time, worked a job to support himself and get his own place to live. He perfected his language skills and became a citizen in five years. No one gave him handouts, no one gave him free stuff to make it, all he got was the opportunity to enter and the requirement that he have a sponsor who would ensure he was gainfully employed and had a place to live.
This mass entry with few restrictions is a disaster. People entering illegally and under these methods are at high risk of exploitation. For all those people who believe these immigrants should be helped…step up and sponsor some. THAT is putting your money where your mouth is.
Yes, indeed. If you feel so strongly about this, then adopt a family or an individual and help them to become good American citizens and don’t throw them to the wolves. You can do better than simply enjoy cheap child care or lawn care…can’t you? Turn the immigrants into taxpayers, not tax takers like some groups we know well.
Finish the wall!
THAT wall should have been done DECADES AGO, with a nice deep and wide ditch in front of it!
IMO the start of the downfall of that, was wen we STOPPED FORCING illegals to speak and learn English..
Where are the Shrill Leftist demands for masks to be worn ??
Ahh.. ONLY we Americans, must ‘mask up or face jail time/fines’.. No one else has to..
I just read an article ,where this guy just got out of prison. He had to get a job to stay on Parole. So he had to learn Spanish to get a job in California. He almost got sent back because he hadn’t finish his Spanish classes. Why can’t they learn our language ??
Because Congress refuses to make ENGLISH our NATIONAL language !!!! Ask your Senators and Congressmen , you will be amazed at their stupid answers
BECAUSE our feckless so-called leaders, are too SPINELESS TO MANDATE ENGLISH is our national language.. Hell in most of CA, if you don’t speak spanish as well, good luck getting a job.
Well, here’s what to expect from the Left for the next four years…they’re destroying our great country.