El Paso charity steps up to bus migrants — despite city’s shuttered program
A charity has stepped in to bus migrants out of overrun border crossing El Paso – after the city shut down services and the Bide🐎n administration failed to pay a promised $7♋ million to help.
The Texas city is dealing with 1,400 people attempting to cross from Mexico per day and Customs and Border Protecti𝓡on said it was forced to release over 600 people onto the streets this week because shelters have n♉owhere to house them.
Immigrant aid organization has stepped in to alleviate the problem, setting up a new route to send people to Denver, Colorado. However, so fa🌄r it has only🌺 been able to bus out 50 as part of a pilot program.
The immigrants we𝐆re taken to which will feed and house them, help connect them with friends and family in the US and send them on to whichever destination they are hoping to get to.
“You’ve got to be prepared to respond,” said Ruben Garcia, the director of Annunciation House.
“We appeal to faith communities… that ‘I was a stranger and you welcomed me,” he added, quoting The Bible.
“We ask faith communities in cities in the interior of the United States to reflect on that and to ask themselves, ‘Might we be willing to receive a bus of refugees? Is this something that we could do periodically?'”
Garcia says he’s campaigning hard and hoping to recruit more cities to sign up for the progღram.
El Paso has recently stopped a program it had set up which bussed 14,000 migrants from the border to New York and Chicago, after it left th🔯em $3.6 million out of pock🎉et.
The city had spent $8.9 million on the migrant crisis so far, feeding immigrants, putting them in hotels and transporting them🍷. El Paso has only received $2.2 million back in federal reimbursement though, and put the brakes on further spending💦.
“We’re waiting on $7 million in reimbursement and we’re g♏oing to need to see some approval or some advanced funding before we start any other operations,” said El Paso Deputy City Manager Mario D’Agostino at a city meeting Monday.
The bussing effort by Annunciation House is different than the one ꦦoperated by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, which is still transpor🐻ting immigrants from the Texas border daily.
Abbott began bussing migrants to Washington, D.C. in April and later added so called sanctuary cities to the mix, bussing at least 8,300 migrants to the US capital, over 3,500 migrants to New York🐎 City and more than 1,100 migrants to Chicago since August.
El Paso began chartering busses in August when it ran out of shelter space.
Local leaders repeatedly said its program was not like Abbott’s because they let immigrants choose their destination — with most opting for New York City and Chicago.
Meanwhile, El Paso’s mayor – who previously said he was told not to declare a state of emergency by the White House – said the city would not be bringing back its bus program.
“We are not looking to get into the transportation business again,” Oscar Leeser said.
Leeser did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment on his changing position on managing the migrant crisis.
