California aids arriving asylum-seekers
SAN DIEGO » California is freeing up as much as $28 million to help immigrants arriving from Mexico and being released in the U.S. until their court dates, a sharp contrast from other border states that have emerged as foes of President Joe Biden’s immigration policies.
The funding, expected to last through June, comes as Biden unwinds former President Donald Trump’s policy to make asylum-seekers wait in Mexico until their court hearings. It will pay for hotel rooms for immigrants to quarantine during the coronavirus pandemic before going to their final destinations throughout the U.S.
Money also will go to Jewish Family Service of San Diego to provide food, transportation and help with travel logistics. The state will fund health services for the short stays, including COVID-19 testing.
Last week, the Biden administration began allowing people into the United States who had been forced to wait south of the border under Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy. On his first day, Biden suspended the program for new arrivals.
An estimated 26,000 people with active cases will be allowed into the U.S., with about 25 people released a day in San Diego.
“This is what happens when California and Washington are talking with each other instead of at each other,” said H.D. Palmer, spokesman for the California Department of Finance.
The first asylum-seekers waiting in the Mexican border city of Matamoros, home to a migrant camp with squalid conditions, were processed for entry Thursday in Brownsville, Texas. Processing began Friday in El Paso, Texas.
At the same time, the U.S. is releasing more asylum-seekers who are not enrolled in “Remain in Mexico” into the country, as it did for hundreds of thousands of people before Trump foisted the responsibility of hosting asylumseekers on Mexico in 2019.
With Biden in the White House, Arizona and Texas have emerged as chief critics of immigration policy, a position that California proudly took during the Trump years. Texas successfully sued to block Biden’s 100-day moratorium on deportations.
Texas and Arizona signed agreements with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in Trump’s final days that could delay any changes to immigration policy. The Biden administration has rejected them.