With detention space full at the Texas border, migrants get court dates and a pass into the U.S.

[Elderberry]

Houston Chronicle by Silvia Foster-Frau 3/25/2019

LAREDO - Fire Chief Steve Landin’s cell phone is pinging repeatedly these days with short, perfunctory texts from a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement official.

“Bus from Del Rio with 32, ETA 1500 hrs,” he read on a recent afternoon.

He immediately forwarded it to city health officials and nonprofit leaders, sparking a mobilization for resources to assist migrants released by ICE. He received another text soon after, and then another, amounting to the release of more than 100 migrants.

Similar waves of migrants are arriving by the day farther south in the Rio Grande Valley as border officials deal with a recent surge that has overwhelmed detention officials. More than 76,000 undocumented immigrants came through ports of entry or crossed the Rio Grande illegally in February, the highest number in more than a decade.

In a visit to McAllen last week, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said migrants are being released, with notices to appear later before immigration judges, because detention facilities are out of space. The Border Patrol has said it is devoting about a fourth of its manpower now to processing migrants for release.

The influx began unexpectedly on Feb. 5, the day after a large caravan of 1,800 migrants arrived by buses in Piedras Negras, across the border from Eagle Pass, to request asylum in the United States. After the migrants are processed by border officials there and given court dates, ICE takes them to Laredo, the nearest large bus depot.

Piedras Negras hasn’t historically been a highly trafficked route for migrants planning to enter the U.S. But immigrants appear to be choosing the city, north of Laredo, after a metering system rolled out at larger ports of entry limiting the number of migrants who would be allowed in.

“I think that route was discovered,” said Benjamin De la Garza, head of Catholic Charities in Laredo. “The word spreads very easy.”

The surge has forced Catholic Charities, which operates shelters generally meant to serve the city’s homeless, and Laredo’s health department to take on a whole new kind of service.

“We don’t have the power to say no, we don’t have the power to say yes, they just show up,” said Landin, who also serves as Laredo’s emergency management coordinator. “They’re dropped in our laps.”

Little notice of arrivals

Sometimes the texts from ICE will give a couple hours’ notice of the migrants’ arrival. Sometimes only a few minutes. Sometimes not at all.

More: https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/local/article/With-detention-space-full-at-the-Texas-border-13712552.php