The migrants are coming. While many are flooding the borders in Texas an overwhelming number also enter the country in the Yuma and Tucson sectors of the Border Patrol – but, according to the Biden administration, there is no border crisis.
Even so the Department of State recently appointed Ricardo Zúñiga as Special Envoy for the Northern Triangle. His mission will be to engage governments to find solutions to the dire conditions in the Northern Triangle countries that motivate adults, families and children to come to the U.S. border.
Most migrant border crossers say that they are seeking asylum from violence, corruption, poverty and poor living conditions in Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala. These Central American countries are known collectively as the Northern Triangle because of their geographic location in the Northern region of Central America.
Central America consists of seven countries: Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Belize, Costa Rica and Panama. Of these the last three have relatively stable economies and governments. While Nicaragua has high levels of poverty, rising amounts of violence and political instability, few Nicaraguans are found crossing our Southern border.
The National Immigration Forum identifies the “push” and the “pull” factors at the core of an individual migrant’s motivation to move north to the U.S.A. The “push” factors are all the effects on daily life from economic, political and violent, organized crime plus environmental factors such as drought, hurricanes and other natural disasters. Commonly the “pull” factors are the lure of economic, educational and health care that lead to a better quality of life for the individual and the family. Essentially the American Dream of a job, safety and freedom.
At a March 16 hearing for the Senate Armed Services Committee Adm. Craig Faller, the U.S. Southern Command armed forces leader, spoke of the need for urgency in addressing hemispheric threats in the Central America, especially with regard to illicit drug trafficking and terrorism threats from international agents. A Breitbart News report on March 23 states that, during Adm. Faller’s report at the hearing Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) questioned him about the conditions on the ground in the Northern Triangle. The news report said, “Sen. Cotton noted that Northern Triangle citizens heading for the U.S. border are ‘economic migrants’ who do not qualify for asylum or refugee status under American law because the governments of their home countries do not persecute their own citizens systematically.” Adm. Faller did not dispute Cotton’s characterization of life in the Northern Triangle countries. Cotton further elaborated that, “An economic migrant is not eligible for asylum. They are not eligible for refugee status.”
Most migrants from the Northern Triangle are people of color. Their march to get into the United States shows apparent disregard for media reports about systemic racism towards people of color and rampant white supremacy on American soil.
In a March 19, 2021 letter from the US Senate Committee on the Judiciary eight Senators sent to Alejandro Mayorkas, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security and Xavier Becerra, Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, says:
“The dramatic rise in border crossings has significantly strained existing resources. CBP recently set up a tent city in South Texas to house the growing number of illegal immigrants in custody, and it is now considering plans to open additional facilities in Yuma and Tucson, Arizona.”
The Senators who signed this letter are Charles E. Grassley, Thom Tillis, Josh Hawley, Ted Cruz, Marsha Blackburn, Mike Lee, Tom Cotton and John Kennedy.
Currently the Dallas convention center is set to hold up to 3,000 Unaccompanied Children or UCs. San Diego has now offered the use of their convention center to house children as well.
In Arizona mayors in Yuma and Gila Bend have called the alarm about the fact that migrants are being dropped in their cities with little or no federal assistance. Gila Bend Mayor Chris Riggs has declared the city to be in a State of Emergency because the small city has no shelters or other resources for migrants who are dropped off in their parks.
Tucson is set to receive an unknown number of border crossers. At an emergency meeting of the Pima County Board of Supervisors on March 24, they approved funding the transportation of migrants from Ajo, Arizona to a Tucson shelter, Casa Alitas. Also that day KGUN 9 TV reported that communities along the Arizona border, including Tucson, will share $110 million dollars from FEMA through the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 to help with rescue efforts for migrant border crossers. Tucson Mayor Regina Romero questions FEMA’s ability to repay any expenses incurred by the city for migrant resources in a timely manner.
Tucson Catholic Social Services currently manages the Casa Alitas shelter for migrant families seeking asylum. To a large extent this shelter is run by volunteers. Normally it can house about 300 people but now, due to COVID-19 restrictions they can only accommodate about 65 migrant family members.
In addition the Department of Homeland Security is contracting with Endeavors, a non-profit based in Texas and with an office in Chandler, Arizona to provide hotel rooms for about 1,200 migrant family members. at a cost of $86 million dollars to U.S. taxpayers.
Minor migrants ages 0 – 17 years who are traveling alone or with other minors are designated as Unaccompanied Children (UCs). Until recently they were identified as Unaccompanied Alien Children or UACs until the government decided to eliminate the use of the word “alien” in describing migrants.
Recently photojournalists have managed to share pics of Unaccompanied Children (UC) being housed in overcrowded plastic pods in southern Texas. Media reports claim that these youth need to sleep on the floor in shifts in order to accommodate the massive numbers of children in these government run shelters.
UCs have special needs and legal requirements for sheltering them until they are released to a sponsor. Typically a sponsor is a parent or related family member. Southwest Key Programs, a nonprofit based in Austin, Texas, established their Tucson shelter in 2014 to accommodate up to 300 migrant minors. In accordance with the Flores Settlement agreement they provide the least restrictive environment for border crossers up to age 17. In UC residential shelters across the country minors receive care for their physical and medical needs, in-person classroom education and recreational activities plus legal and behavior health counsel. During their stay at these shelters their case managers research options for sponsors and make arrangements for the minors to be unified with a parent or other family member in the U.S. When a viable and safe sponsor is not available the minor may be sent to special foster care programs or returned to the country of origin. The Southwest Key website has a simple guide to the Flores Settlement, a lawsuit which ordered special arrangement for UCs. [See Visual Guide To The Flores Settlement Agreement]
At the bottom of this web site is a link to the full Flores Settlement agreement with all its updates throughout the years since the original one in 1997 during the Clinton administration. Southwest Key Programs also manages various shelters in the greater Phoenix area.
Other known Tucson area shelters for UC are at the Benson Vison Quest facility and Rite of Passage, Inc. in Oracle. All UC shelters are supervised by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), under the Department of Health and Human Services headed by Secretary Xavier Becerra.
For this article an email was sent to the Public Affairs Office of the Tucson Border Control asking for more information. There was no reply. Also, in a call to the Office of Refugee Resettlement in Phoenix, the response was that they system cannot process the call.