Buses full of migrant families from Laredo and Del Rio are driven to Dallas, where confused passengers are dropped off to reduce overcrowding in border towns. And Laredo’s unannounced trips send city officials and Spanish-speaking police officers to shelter them.
At least three buses have arrived in the past two weeks, illustrating how an unusual spike in border migration in the heat of summer north Texas has created a ripple effect. A fourth bus from Del Rio arrived Wednesday evening carrying migrant families from Haiti and Cuba.
Laredo’s buses were chartered from the town of Laredo, where Mayor Pete Saenz said his border town has been overwhelmed by migrants brought there by the U.S. border patrol in the Rio Grande Valley as the coronavirus pandemic pounds local hospitals. Laredo spokeswoman Noraida Negron confirmed that Laredo chartered buses to send migrants to Dallas, Austin and Houston, with about 800 migrants being sent north.
Del Rio donations were coordinated by nonprofits, religious leaders said.
None of the Laredo migrants had been tested for COVID-19 prior to their seven-hour trip to Dallas, Negron said. The tests were a focal point as Texas hospitals struggled with COVID-19 infections due to the rapidly spreading Delta variant. The border patrol does not test migrants at their facilities before they are released to nonprofits only to be eventually taken inside the U.S., where they usually await appointments before an immigration court.
Almas Muscatwalla – executive director of Faith Forward Dallas in Thanks-Giving Square, one of the religious groups that help migrant families who come from Central America, Haiti and Cuba and often seek asylum – said it was unclear whether the migrants were from Del Rio tested, but all migrants are provided with masks and hand sanitizer. A doctor and nurse will meet with the youngest migrants Wednesday night, she said.
Upon their sudden arrival in Dallas, migrants receive food, hotel rooms, transportation to airports or bus stations, and limited medical care from local nonprofit organizations.
“It’s like surviving the fittest,” said Muscatwalla. But she added, “I would rather have this situation than nobody to help … I want to offer these people the best hospitality and welcome.”
Dave Woodyard, executive director of Dallas Catholic Charities, said his staff helped calm and care for migrant families in downtown Dallas on Friday and Saturday. There were around 40 to 50 migrants every day. Catholic charities paid for hotel rooms, and Spanish-speaking police officers rushed to buy fresh diapers for the children.
Faith Forward Dallas volunteers helped migrant families from Haiti and Cuba get off a bus at a hotel in Irving on Wednesday. The bus came from the border town of Del Rio, Texas.(Brandon Wade / special article)
Christina da Silva, an official with the Dallas city of Welcoming Communities and Immigrant Affairs, said an employee of Greyhound Lines Inc. called the city police at 911 when a bus arrived. This started a chain of help, from the police to the volunteers, at the bus station last Friday and then again on Saturday at around 11 p.m. Some migrant families did not know which city they were in. Some children were missing shoes.
“It’s such a vulnerable situation for them,” said da Silva, who helped the migrant families.
“Dallas is a welcoming city. We want to respect their dignity as a person. “
Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security chief at the Brownsville border is expected Thursday to review the challenges posed by the arrests of migrants, which reached about 210,000 in July. About 6 in 10 people are quickly expelled from the border under a Trump-era policy called Title 42 related to the coronavirus pandemic.
These policies have also resulted in a large increase in the number of repeated border crossings, so each arrest does not necessarily represent an attempt by a new immigrant to cross the border. In June, about a third of those arrested were repeat offenders – an increase from just 7% who tried a second and third time in 2019.
The Rio Grande Valley is the busiest region for migration.
The Mayor of Laredo is one of the invitees to the high-profile visit to the Rio Grande Valley Thursday by Alejandro Mayorkas, the DHS chief, who previously warned that migration will soon reach levels not seen in two decades since people are fleeing poverty and natural disasters in countries like Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.
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