In the last year, a record number of families have arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border to seek asylum. Border Patrol says their holding cells are full. So they’ve started releasing some families directly to cities along or even hours from the border.
Cities like Las Cruces and Deming are sheltering hundreds of migrants a day, setting up cots everywhere from an empty airplane hangar to an old Army Reserve Center.
Chris Brice stands in a makeshift shelter on the New Mexico state fairgrounds in Deming. There are cots piled with Red Cross blankets and fold-out tables loaded with hamburgers.
“We had 92 cots the first day,” he says. “We’ve had up to 300 people here at any given time.”
Brice is assistant manager of Luna County and runs the county detention center. He oversees this and another temporary shelter, in an old World War II airplane hangar. Until recently, those buildings sat empty. Then Border Patrol announced it would start dropping off migrant families.
“And when they said dropping off, they meant at the McDonald’s, which is a bus ticket-slash-stop,” he says. “And then there’s a Member’s Food Mart, which is just a little gas station that’s a Greyhound bus stop.”
Local officials scrambled to set up the shelters, so families weren’t simply dropped in a fast food parking lot. Two busloads of migrants arrived on Mother’s Day, and they’ve been arriving daily - more than 5,000 through early June.
“The way it was couched to us was hey, we need to relieve pressure at the Border Patrol station, because they were way over capacity with people,” Brice says. “So we kinda thought this was just a quick release of people just to relieve some pressure. We didn’t realize this was gonna be day after day after day.”
A record number of families are crossing the U.S.-Mexico border to claim asylum. In the last year, the El Paso sector - which includes all of New Mexico - saw 2,000 percent increase in the number of families who were apprehended or surrendered to Border Patrol. The agency says its holding cells are full, so it’s started releasing some migrants directly to cities like Deming and Las Cruces.
Nahum and Dolores arrived here from Honduras. They’ve been married four years, have a three-year-old daughter and a baby on the way.
Nahum says there isn’t work in his home country, and life there is expensive. He says the lack of opportunity and high rates of crime drove his family to the United States. They traveled by foot and pickup truck until they reached the border. Now they’re here at the shelter, waiting for tickets to Pennsylvania, where they’ll join a friend.
Nahum helps mop the floor - a way to pitch in and pass time - while their daughter sits cross-legged on a cot, snacking on orange slices.
Volunteers are stationed throughout the shelter. Some wear bright orange or yellow vests, to signal that they speak Spanish.
Ariana Jaime Saludares comes here almost every day, often with her young children and 89-year-old grandmother in tow. She says seemingly small gestures can mean a lot, like eating meals alongside the families.
“In my opinion, it’s important for the volunteers to eat what we’re serving our guests, so our guests can see what we’re providing for them is good enough for us too,” she says. “They need to see they’re not getting sloppy seconds. This is handmade, this is made with compassion.”
Sixty miles away, in Las Cruces, a similar scene is playing out at an old U.S. Army Reserve Center.
A Guatemalan father named Hamilton rifles through a manila folder. It’s filled with important documents, including a notice to appear in court and Greyhound tickets for him and his son. Like all the migrants here, Hamilton will have to make his asylum case in front of an immigration judge.
“They have a legal status,” says Chris Brice, the Luna County assistant manager. “Once Border Patrol leaves them with us, they’re legally here in the United States. They’ll have their court date and people will complain about how long, how far off that court date is. That’s all out of our hands. But these are families, these are people.”
The Las Cruces City Council voted to dedicate up to $575,000 to sheltering migrants, while the Deming City Council voted to dedicate up to $1 million. Brice expects to get that money back. He says Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham told him the county will be reimbursed by the state or federal government.
“We’ve been assured by the governor we’ll get restitution for what we’re spending on this effort, and I fully believe what she says,” Brice says. “We are operating under the assumption that we will be made whole with whatever we have to spend on this effort.”
Lujan Grisham recently traveled to Washington, D.C. to request additional funding for border communities. And she filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, in part to seek reimbursement for what’s already been spent.
For now, the state is providing each city and county with a $250,000 emergency grant. Brice says he’s looking into long-term housing options and hiring seasonal employees. He’s one of several people working to balance new demands with everyday municipal services.
Raul Mercado is Deming’s Fire/EMS chief. His crew is currently working of the old airplane hangar, running calls while also caring for asylum-seekers.
“We’re kind of stationed here at the airport right now, not at our station,” Mercado says. “So our times are a little bit delayed on responses. We’re not doing the inspections and training we typically do.”
“Obviously you can’t have city, county employees and volunteers- everybody gets fatigued,” says Chris Brice. “We all have other jobs that we have to do as well.”
There are more efforts to ease the strain, like transporting families to larger, less overwhelmed cities. Due to a federal policy, immigration officials can’t transport migrants for more than eight hours. So the governor’s office paid for a bus from Las Cruces to Denver. A foundation in Santa Fe chartered a bus from Deming to Dallas, where a church took in dozens of migrants.
Not everyone has been so welcoming. Both Otero and Sierra counties passed resolutions against sheltering migrants.
But Aaron Sera, Deming’s city administrator, says it’s not so simple. The city and county didn’t have a say in whether or not they received migrants.
“We don’t have a choice,” he says. “The Border Patrol is leaving these people here. They’re gonna leave them in the middle of town or they’re gonna drop them off here” at the shelters.
Those drop offs may last for awhile. Chris Brice says the last he heard, this could continue for up to two years.
