EL PASO, Texas — Mayors representing cities located on or near the U.S.-Mexico border expect to blow through $30 million Congress allocated in a recent supplemental funding bill for humanitarian costs associated with record-high numbers of migrant families arriving at the border.
“We were all actively involved in lobbying our congressional delegates to see the supplemental funding take place. However, $30 million is really going to be reimbursing communities like mine, pennies on the dollar for the supplies and the manpower and resources that we’ve been asked to donate to this crisis in our country,” said John Giles, mayor of Mesa, Arizona, during a press conference Thursday afternoon.
Six mayors from cities in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona detailed the costs their communities have incurred in that time and knocked lawmakers for the delay it took for short-term assistance. The bipartisan group spoke after touring Customs and Border Protection facilities with acting Homeland Security Secretary Kevin McAleenan.
“We all recognize that this emergency aid is for this fiscal year only and that it does not begin to meet the real needs that exist at either state, federal, or local levels,” said Bryan Barnett, a mayor from Michigan who serves as president of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. “We call on Congress to directly allocate the funding needed by local communities and nongovernmental organizations to respond to those humanitarian crises that we face on our southern border.”
In west Arizona, more than 60,000 people have been apprehended in the region since the start of the 2019 fiscal year in October, making it the third-busiest for border crossings of all nine Border Patrol regions. Mayor Douglas Nicholls said the city has been in a state of emergency for three months because it cannot financially or physically keep up with the number of people being released from federal custody and in need of assistance.
“We’ve had in the previous three months, 5,000 people come through our shelter in Yuma,” Nicholls said. “The city of Yuma is 100,000 people, and when you ramp it up to like the state capital in Arizona, the whole Phoenix area is just about 4 million people. That would be the equivalent to 200,000 people being released in the metro Phoenix area. So it’s a big impact in our community.”
Since April, Yuma has put forward $1.5 million toward migrant care, including $800,000 on hospital costs and $700,000 by nonprofit organizations. Nicholls said the money from Washington “takes the pressure” off local organizations.
El Paso has seen the second-highest number of people arriving, both legally and illegally, since January, but has documented lower spending levels, roughly $200,000 with an additional $300,000 projected through the end of the year.
Tim Keller, mayor of Albuquerque, New Mexico, said local officials are focused on immediate results for their residents, but Congress has been difficult to siphon help from.
“We’re focused on what’s actually happening — the root causes and the politics behind it, much less our concern,” said Keller.
One official thanked Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn for reaching out to the border cities about how much they were spending so that some of those costs could be reimbursed.
The conference of mayors passed multiple resolutions during its annual meeting last week calling on the federal government to give local communities more funding to respond to the continued crisis on the southern border.
