As a growing number of migrant families cross the U.S.-Mexico border, seeking asylum, immigration officials say their holding facilities are at capacity. Border Patrol has started releasing some families directly, instead of handing them over to be processed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. This new policy took effect in Las Cruces last Friday. City officials say as of Wednesday afternoon, they’ve accepted more than 800 asylum seekers.
On a warm Monday night, several Border Patrol vans pull up to the Las Cruces Gospel Rescue Mission. Families emerge - parents cradling babies or holding young children’s hands. Volunteers pass out water bottles and Chapstick, then direct them to the cafeteria - where they’ll receive a warm, home-cooked meal.
Gospel Rescue Mission is a homeless shelter. But it’s also started taking in migrant families, who’ve just been released from government custody. They stay for a night or two, sleeping on cots in the cafeteria, so they don’t displace the shelter’s usual residents. Then they board a plane or bus and join relatives in other parts of the country, while they wait for their day in immigration court.
This all started last Friday, when Border Patrol began releasing migrants directly to the City of Las Cruces - about 130 per day, according to a city official. These large drop offs are new. Until recently, Immigration and Customs Enforcement released a limited number of migrants to several churches in southern New Mexico.
Dr. John Andazola directs the Southern New Mexico Family Medicine Residency Program; he and his residents volunteer at those churches, providing free medical evaluations.
“This response we’ve been doing, gosh, probably over a year now,” he says. “And we’ve been receiving about 100 to 200 asylum seekers a week. And now it’s becoming 150 a day.
Andazola stands outside a mobile medical van, parked in the back of Gospel Rescue Mission. He motions across the yard, where children kick donated soccer balls and families rinse off in pop-up shower tents.
“So what we’re seeing here is actually overflow from what already exists,” he says.
In addition to Gospel Rescue mission, several other city and nonprofit facilities have opened their doors to temporarily accommodate the growing number of migrants. Doña Ana County began housing some families in the Crisis Triage Center, which recently sat vacant.
Volunteers are lining up to help with everything from assisting families as they make travel arrangements to sorting through donated items like clothing and toiletries. The state Health Department is asking for volunteer doctors and nurses to come provide medical evaluations.
Inside the mobile medical van, Andazola examines a two-year-old boy with a runny nose and watery eyes. He wants to make sure the child doesn’t have a high enough fever to warrant a hospital visit, but ultimately decides he simply needs some rehydration packets.
The boy’s father - who only gives his first name, Sergio - traveled here from Guatemala. He says his son became sick while they were in a government holding facility. It was cold in there, he says, and agents took away his blankets. He’s grateful to be at this shelter, now, where he says he’s getting better treatment.
This work takes lots of coordination. Freida Adams oversees all the medical volunteers, assigning them to whichever shelters or churches need help on a particular night. She recently left her job at the state Health Department to do this volunteer work full time.
Adams says most families arrive exhausted, and sometimes confused about whether or not they’re still in detention. Volunteers try to make them feel welcome right away.
“We start handing out water, we start handing out snacks because the thing they need the most is a place to sit,” Adams says. “Set their babies down. They’ve been carrying their babies for 2,000 miles and even in the holding many times they hold that child constantly. So to be able to set your child down and rest your arms is a big thing.”
Adams says she’s heartened by the number of volunteers who have stepped up to help out, but concerned about burnout and having enough medical supplies. Right now, her team relies on donations. She says that worked okay a few months ago, when medics were visiting just one or two churches and treating about fifteen patients a week.
“Then people who volunteered just went by a store and bought 100 or 150 dollars worth of medicine,” she says. “Now those people are working two, three nights a week,” and seeing substantially more patients.
“We are far beyond the ability of people to buy for themselves,” she says.
The City of Las Cruces has acknowledged this challenge - relying on churches, shelters, and community members to pay for everything from medication to toiletries to gas, when volunteers drive families to the bus station or airport. The federal government doesn’t pay for any of these services. On Monday, the city council voted unanimously to provide $75,000 in humanitarian assistance for asylum seekers.
Adams is thrilled with that decisions. She says it’s critical to support these families as Border Patrol continues to release them.
“They’re gonna drop these people off,” she says. “If we’re not here to accept them and get them off the street and care for them, they’re gonna be sitting somewhere on somebody’s sidewalk, unable to move any further.”
