THERE IS NO BORDER CRISIS!
SOUTH OR NORTH!
VALERIE GONZALEZ
Sun, January 5, 2025
McALLEN, Texas (AP) — When Roselins Sequera's family of seven finally reached the U.S. from Venezuela, they spent weeks at a migrant shelter on the Texas border that gave them a place to sleep, meals and tips for finding work.
“We had a plan to go to Iowa" to join friends, said Sequera, who arrived at the Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley in October. “But we didn’t know how.”
Dozens of shelters run by aid groups on the U.S. border with Mexico have welcomed large numbers of migrants, providing lifelines of support and relief to overwhelmed cities. They work closely with the Border Patrol to care for migrants released with notices to appear in immigration court, many of whom don't know where they are or how to find the nearest airport or bus station.
But Republican scrutiny of the shelters is intensifying, and President-elect Donald Trump's allies consider them a magnet for illegal immigration. Many are nonprofits that rely on federal funding, including $650 million under one program last year alone.
The incoming Trump administration has pledged to carry out an ambitious immigration agenda, including a campaign promise of mass deportations. The new White House's potential playbook includes using the National Guard to arrest migrants and installing buoy barriers on the waters between the U.S. and Mexico.
As part of that agenda, Trump's incoming border czar, Tom Homan, has vowed to review the role of nongovernmental organizations and whether they helped open “the doors to this humanitarian crisis.” Entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who along with Elon Musk was tapped by Trump to find ways to cut federal spending, has signaled that the groups are in his sights and called them “a waste of taxpayer dollars.”
“Americans deserve transparency on opaque foreign aid & nonprofit groups abetting our own border crisis,” Ramaswamy said last month in a post on X.
The Trump administration did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
The developments have alarmed immigration advocates and some officials in border communities, including Republicans, who say those communities can collapse without shelter space or a budget to pay for humanitarian costs.
Aid groups deny that they are aiding illegal immigration. They say they are responding to emergencies foisted on border towns and performing humanitarian work.
“The groundwork is being laid here in Texas for a larger assault on nonprofits that are just trying to protect people’s civil rights,” said Rochelle Garza, president of the Texas Civil Rights Project, an advocacy group.
For the past year, Texas has launched investigations into six organizations that provide shelter, food and travel advice to migrants. Courts have so far largely rebuffed the state's efforts, including rejecting a lawsuit to shut down El Paso's Annunciation House, but several cases remain on appeal.
The Texas Civil Rights Project, which represents two organizations being probed by the state, says it has trained more than 100 migrant aid organizations in the weeks since Trump’s reelection on how to respond if investigators come knocking.
The Texas investigations began after Republican Gov. Greg Abbott alleged in 2022, without evidence, that border nonprofits were encouraging illegal crossings and transporting migrants.
Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, which operates a shelter in McAllen with capacity for 1,200 people, was notified by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in March that authorities wanted to interview the executive director, Sister Norma Pimentel, to investigate whether there were “practices for facilitating alien crossings over the Texas-Mexico border.”
Pimentel declined to comment to The Associated Press, citing the ongoing case, but attorneys representing her organization responded to the accusations in court calling them a "fishing expedition into a pond where no one has ever seen a fish.”
In downtown McAllen, a large lobby serves as a welcome center where families receive travel information while their children play with volunteers. This year, nearly 50,000 migrants have passed through the shelter. Personal belongings and sleeping mats are in a separate section sandwiched between the lobby and the kitchen.
The Sequeras, who stayed two weeks, fell into a regimen of waking at 6 a.m., clearing sleeping mats off the floor and having breakfast by 7 a.m. They performed other chores such as cleaning or doing laundry to keep the large shelter running.
Volunteer attorneys help migrants apply for work authorization. Without that help, Sequera said, the process would have taken longer to learn and cost them thousands of dollars before they would have been able to continue their journey north.
McAllen Mayor Javier Villalobos is at odds with Paxton, a fellow Republican, over the Catholic Charities investigation. His city found room for about 140 migrants a day in 2024 — a dramatic drop from 2021, when a surge in crossings across the southern U.S. border that year put the shelter over maximum capacity and forced it to close for several days.
"They have served the purpose because the feds have not acted in what they have to do,” Villalobos said. “In McAllen, we would have been lost without them.”
Former McAllen Mayor Jim Darling still recalls the night he received a call from the city manager in 2014 explaining that the bus station was closing, but 25 migrants were still waiting for a bus. He asked Pimentel at Catholic Charities for help.
Hidalgo County authorities turned to Pimentel in 2021 when migrants were being released without testing for COVID-19. Catholic Charities conducted testing and quarantined those who tested positive.
The shelters have received help from U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat who since 2019 has steered federal funding to them through the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He beat back Republican opposition last year.
“Will they attack it again and try to eliminate it?" Cuellar said. "Yes.”
Migrant arrests at US-Mexico border lower than when Trump left office
“The groundwork is being laid here in Texas for a larger assault on nonprofits that are just trying to protect people’s civil rights,” said Rochelle Garza, president of the Texas Civil Rights Project, an advocacy group.
For the past year, Texas has launched investigations into six organizations that provide shelter, food and travel advice to migrants. Courts have so far largely rebuffed the state's efforts, including rejecting a lawsuit to shut down El Paso's Annunciation House, but several cases remain on appeal.
The Texas Civil Rights Project, which represents two organizations being probed by the state, says it has trained more than 100 migrant aid organizations in the weeks since Trump’s reelection on how to respond if investigators come knocking.
The Texas investigations began after Republican Gov. Greg Abbott alleged in 2022, without evidence, that border nonprofits were encouraging illegal crossings and transporting migrants.
Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley, which operates a shelter in McAllen with capacity for 1,200 people, was notified by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in March that authorities wanted to interview the executive director, Sister Norma Pimentel, to investigate whether there were “practices for facilitating alien crossings over the Texas-Mexico border.”
Pimentel declined to comment to The Associated Press, citing the ongoing case, but attorneys representing her organization responded to the accusations in court calling them a "fishing expedition into a pond where no one has ever seen a fish.”
In downtown McAllen, a large lobby serves as a welcome center where families receive travel information while their children play with volunteers. This year, nearly 50,000 migrants have passed through the shelter. Personal belongings and sleeping mats are in a separate section sandwiched between the lobby and the kitchen.
The Sequeras, who stayed two weeks, fell into a regimen of waking at 6 a.m., clearing sleeping mats off the floor and having breakfast by 7 a.m. They performed other chores such as cleaning or doing laundry to keep the large shelter running.
Volunteer attorneys help migrants apply for work authorization. Without that help, Sequera said, the process would have taken longer to learn and cost them thousands of dollars before they would have been able to continue their journey north.
McAllen Mayor Javier Villalobos is at odds with Paxton, a fellow Republican, over the Catholic Charities investigation. His city found room for about 140 migrants a day in 2024 — a dramatic drop from 2021, when a surge in crossings across the southern U.S. border that year put the shelter over maximum capacity and forced it to close for several days.
"They have served the purpose because the feds have not acted in what they have to do,” Villalobos said. “In McAllen, we would have been lost without them.”
Former McAllen Mayor Jim Darling still recalls the night he received a call from the city manager in 2014 explaining that the bus station was closing, but 25 migrants were still waiting for a bus. He asked Pimentel at Catholic Charities for help.
Hidalgo County authorities turned to Pimentel in 2021 when migrants were being released without testing for COVID-19. Catholic Charities conducted testing and quarantined those who tested positive.
The shelters have received help from U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Texas Democrat who since 2019 has steered federal funding to them through the Federal Emergency Management Agency. He beat back Republican opposition last year.
“Will they attack it again and try to eliminate it?" Cuellar said. "Yes.”
Migrant arrests at US-Mexico border lower than when Trump left office
Ted Hesson
Tue, January 7, 2025
Migrants anticipate challenges near US border as caravan treks through southern Mexico
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The number of migrants arrested illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexico border in December was lower than when President-elect Donald Trump ended his first term in 2020, according to preliminary figures shared with Reuters, a relative calm that Trump could upend with sweeping changes.
U.S. Border Patrol apprehended about 47,000 migrants illegally crossing the southwest border in December, a senior U.S. border official told Reuters. That figure is similar to November's, and well below the Biden administration peak of 250,000 recorded in December 2023. It is also below the 71,000 migrant arrests made in December 2020 as Trump concluded his 2017-2021 presidency.
The number of migrants caught at the northern border with Canada fell to about 500 in December, down from 700 in November, the official said.
Trump, a Republican, returns to the White House on Jan. 20 promising to crack down on illegal immigration and deport immigrants in the U.S. illegally. Republican U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally, said on Sunday that Trump will need $100 billion for the effort, more than the entire budget of many federal agencies.
The number of migrants caught illegally crossing the border with Mexico rose to record highs during outgoing Democratic President Joe Biden's time in office, but fell dramatically after he toughened his approach last year and as Mexico and Panama stepped up enforcement in the region.
Biden asylum restrictions in June blocked most migrants crossing illegally from claiming asylum and instead encouraged them to use new legal entry programs. The programs include an app known as CBP One that allows migrants in Mexico to schedule an appointment to claim asylum at a legal border crossing and another for certain migrants abroad with U.S. sponsors.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said in a statement that tougher border policies, international cooperation and new legal pathways contributed to "sustained success."
Republicans argue that Biden's legal entry programs overstepped his executive authority. Trump plans to end the programs when he takes office, Reuters reported in November, cutting off pathways that Biden officials say encouraged would-be migrants to enter in an orderly fashion.
Doris Meissner, a senior fellow with the non-partisan Migration Policy Institute, said Biden is poised to hand Trump the most "quiet and stable border" in years, a situation that could change if Trump blows it up without an effective replacement.
"If they simply shut down all of those policies and don't have some other regime to put in place, it could backfire and numbers could go up, because there are a lot of people that are waiting in Mexico," Meissner said.
Trump's transition team spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt criticized high levels of illegal immigration during Biden's presidency and said in a statement that Trump "will use every level of executive and legislative power to secure the border, mass deport illegal criminals, and put American citizens first."
About 280,000 prospective migrants in Mexico have been logging onto the CBP One app daily to try to secure an appointment, a figure that has stayed consistent, according to the senior U.S. border official. The tally includes Mexicans who may be using the app from their homes, the official said.
In both November and December, more migrants were processed through legal border crossings than were caught crossing illegally, according to public and internal U.S. government figures.
Mexico greatly increased its own migration enforcement in the past year amid pressure from the Biden administration.
Trump has taken a combative approach to relations with Mexico and Canada, promising 25% tariffs on all imports until the countries clamp down further on illegal immigration and fentanyl trafficking.
The number of migrant arrests at the U.S.-Mexico border fell sharply in 2020 at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic but then rose later that year, partly due to repeat crossers.
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