City Down $75,000 After 1,600 Migrants Dumped on Its Doorstep
There’s a price tag attached to illegal immigration. For one New Mexico locale, it’s at least $75,000.
According to KVIA-TV, that’s what Las Cruces has paid in humanitarian aid after 1,600 asylum-seekers have been released in the city of 100,000 since April 12.
What’s more, Border Patrol dropped off 1,080 there over a one-week period, according to the Las Cruces Sun News reported.
“Friday of last week, the federal agency began releasing migrants in Las Cruces because of a shortage of space at Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers. Most are migrants from Central America who are seeking asylum,” the Sun News noted in an April 18 report.
“In response, the city established a network of temporary shelters to house migrants while the asylum-seekers — men, women and children — look to travel elsewhere in the United States.
“Border Patrol dropped off another 140 migrants by 1 p.m. Thursday, bringing the total number since last week to 1,080, with more migrants were expected after 1 p.m.”
Most of the migrants found sponsors elsewhere, Mayor Ken Miyagishima told the newspaper.
He said that “75 percent are gone” and the number was down to 250, if that.
Still, he said that his city can’t handle that number of migrants, even if they do find sponsors outside of Las Cruces.
He’s talked with the mayors of Santa Fe and Albuquerque to relieve the burden.
“It looks like they’ll be taking some. We just need to figure out transportation,” Miyagishima said.
“It’s nonstop. They’re bringing them at all hours of the night,” he added, saying that city employees were “tired” and “overworked” from handling the migrants drop-offs.
“We could easily handle 200, but not 200 a day, and that’s why I’m thinking if Santa Fe can do 150 to 200 every three days, I think it’s more manageable,” he said. “Right now, we just can’t handle it.”
Check out an April 18 report by KTSM here:
Meanwhile, Otero County — which is one county over from where Las Cruces is — has declared a state of emergency because of drug smuggling and other criminal activity at the border.
According to the Alamogordo Daily News, the county is “calling on New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham to deploy the National Guard to reopen the Customs and Border Patrol checkpoints that were closed in March.”
“If this demand is not met by the State of New Mexico in one week’s time, the County of Otero will take action itself to provide security and safety and well-being for the people in this county,” Otero County Commission Chairman Couy Griffin said on April 17.
“Otero County will also consider litigation in regards to the State of New Mexico failing to follow its constitutional duties towards the people of Otero County.”
The kind of action Otero is seeking seems unlikely to happen, since Grisham is a liberal Democrat who denies there’s even a border crisis.
In a statement, her office said: “The National Guard does not and would not operate federal checkpoints.”
“If Otero County officials are unhappy that a federal checkpoint has been un-manned, so to speak, their concerns would have the best chance of being addressed if registered with the federal agency that made the decision to shift that personnel elsewhere,” said governor’s office spokesman Tripp Stelnicki, according to the Daily News.
The El Paso Times noted that the mayor of Yuma, Arizona, has also declared a state of emergency due to migrants being released directly into the community.
These border communities are all feeling the pinch from the price tag of illegal immigration. And, there are scads of cities and counties that are feeling the same pinch, all thanks to a border crisis some politicians refuse to believe even exists.
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