MCALLEN, Texas — A south Texas city at the center of the border crisis pitched a series of emergency outdoor tents to house migrants who have tested positive for the coronavirus after being released from Border Patrol custody.
City officials set up several beige tents on county property in Anzalduas Park in Mission, Texas, on Wednesday in response to the record-high number of coronavirus cases among migrants and the community’s inability to house people adequately. The park is closed to the public.
The new tents will allow migrants who have tested positive for the coronavirus to stay for a two-week quarantine period. Family members who do not test positive but wish to stay may also stay in the tents.
The move is intended to prevent people infected from being released into the public and traveling nationwide, following an incident last week in which a sick person who had been released ate at a fast-food restaurant in nearby La Joya, Texas.
Catholic Charities, a religious nonprofit organization that aids migrants in the Rio Grande Valley, ran out of space at its shelter in McAllen earlier this week. The space is only supposed to hold 1,236 people, but roughly 2,000 people were seeking admission daily.
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“Unfortunately, because of the very high volume of immigrants that are coming here, we’ve reached the point of capacity,” said Hidalgo County Precinct 3 Commissioner Everardo Villarreal.
A spokesman for the mayor told reporters at a press conference Thursday afternoon that Catholic Charities informed the city over the weekend that it needed additional space to hold people immediately. McAllen officials initially made plans to use facilities farther uptown to hold sick people but changed course this week.
“As we were erecting that facility, we were also having discussions with other entities to see what other location would be more suitable, and we were lucky enough to think of this location, and we reached out to the county, who agreed almost immediately,” said the mayor’s spokesman, whose name was not shared.
NEW: An emergency tent compound is being built in Anzalduas Park in Mission, TX to house COVID positive migrants who have been released from federal custody. It was previously set up in McAllen, but it was moved to this location overnight. Press conference upcoming. @FoxNews pic.twitter.com/D0sTHtZgRX
— Bill Melugin (@BillFOXLA) August 5, 2021
However, Hidalgo County health authority Dr. Ivan Melendez told reporters at a county press conference earlier in the day that community members complained about plans to put up a migrant facility uptown. Melendez said it would have gone up in front of his mother’s house, and he believed it posed a “safety issue” and told officials to build elsewhere.
Approximately 2,000 migrants who came across the U.S.-Mexico border with a family member are being released by the federal government in the Rio Grande Valley daily this past week, a number far higher than any point in the past. The city and nonprofit organizations have never been presented with so many people released onto the street, much less during a global pandemic.
Villarreal blasted the Biden administration for leaving the city and county to pick up the pieces and pay out of its own pocket to care for refugees discharged from federal custody at the international border.
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“This is a federal issue. These immigrants are here based on the laws of our nation, legally seeking asylum. And it’s the federal government’s responsibility to care for them,” Villarreal said.
