Ariz. heat, numbers overwhelm charity
Churches face challenges trying to help migrant families
Since October, the Iglesia Cristiana El Buen Pastor, a small Hispanic church in Mesa, has provided migrant families released by U.S. immigration authorities a place to stay until they continue on their way to destinations around the country.
But now the carpeting in the room where migrant families sleep at night needs replacing. The misting system in the outdoor courtyard, where families are served food, is clogged. And worst of all, one of the church’s two rooftop air conditioning units broke down in April.
The unit will cost $6,500 to replace. A volunteer from outside the church has donated $5,000. But so far the
church has been unable to come up with the $1,500 difference because the mostly low-income congregation can’t even afford that, said Cecilia Ramirez, who along with her husband, Hector Ramirez, is co-pastor.
“We have three emergencies,” Ramirez said one recent afternoon, as migrant families sat at long tables in the church’s small courtyard. “The first is the air conditioner. The second is the carpeting. The third is the misters.”
Fortunately, May has been cooler than normal this year.
But with inevitable 100-degree Arizona heat coming, Ramirez said the church may have no choice but to stop accepting migrant families for the summer at a time when an influx of migrant families arriving at the southern border have reached record levels.
ICE has released 185,000 migrants traveling as families since December through May 21, including 32,500 in the agency’s Phoenix area of responsibility, which includes all of Arizona, 65,000 in the El Paso area, and 17,00 in the San Diego area. The release of families has strained the resources of many cities and towns in border states, including Arizona.
Other small Hispanic churches in the Phoenix area face similar challenges and may also soon stop accepting migrant families.
Community leaders say that underscores the urgent need for some sort of governmental response to help take the pressure off churches that until now largely have shouldered the migrant family crisis on their own.
“We have yet to have a single government entity step up to the plate to assist us in any way,” said Mary Jo Miller, director of Refugee Aid, a Phoenix-based grassroots group that has been helping migrant families released by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
With some local churches opting to no longer accept migrant families during the summer, some community leaders fear ICE will release more large groups of migrant families at the Greyhound bus station, as the agency has done occasionally in the past when churches lacked the capacity.
In the summer heat, that could lead to disaster, said Connie Phillips, president and CEO of Lutheran Social Services of the Southwest, which has helped build a network of about 40 churches willing to assist migrant families released by ICE.
Without shelter, food or water, migrant families released at the bus station or surrounding neighborhood could be vulnerable to the heat, she said. Especially those with young children.
“These are children and we all know that in Arizona being exposed to the heat can bring a lot of danger,” Philips said. “We don’t want to wait until we have someone dying at the side of the bus station until we create a more sustainable solution.”
Phillips and other community leaders have been calling on government officials for months to assist churches and other groups helping migrant families released by ICE, either by providing emergency funds or opening a government building for use as a temporary shelter for migrants.
In April, California Gov. Gavin Newsom approved sending $500,000 to Riverside County to assist local groups providing humanitarian assistance to migrant families released by the Border Patrol.
The money will come from the state’s Rapid Response Reserve Fund.
In New Mexico, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham and Albuquerque Mayor Tim Keller announced plans in April to begin providing shelter to migrant families at Expo New Mexico, a state facility, to help alleviate pressure on community groups.
But in Arizona, requests for government assistance have gone unanswered, Phillips said.
“I am surprised we have not been able to come together with the city or the state to come up with a solution,” Phillips said. “I’m surprised and disappointed that we haven’t been able to find city resources, county resources and state resources to step in.”
Patrick Ptak, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey’s spokesman, said the governor “has been vocal” that it is up to Congress to address the influx of migrant families.
“This is a crisis caused by Congress. This is a crisis they need to fix,” Ptak said, pointing out that, in the meantime, the Department of Homeland Security is considering erecting large-scale tents in Yuma to temporarily house and process migrant families, which would alleviate the release of migrant families in communities in Arizona.
For months, the Border Patrol and ICE have been releasing migrant families in Yuma and Tucson because the Trump administration says the government lacks detention capacity to hold all of them and also because federal laws and court rulings prevent the government from prolonging the detention of migrant families who ask for asylum.
Under Ducey’s direction, Wendy Smith-Reeve, deputy director of the Arizona Department of Emergency and Military Affairs, or DEMA, has been meeting regularly with community groups assisting migrant families.
Smith-Reeve said her office has helped improve communication between federal authorities and community groups, who complained in the past about not receiving enough advanced warning about when and where large groups of migrant families were being released.
But she said she hadn’t heard of community groups requesting financial assistance from the state or for the state to provide a building to temporarily house migrant families.
“No, I do not have any requests for those items,” she said.
Smith-Reeve also said she knew of no state-owned buildings that would be appropriate to serve as a migrant shelter.
Under state rules, the state can only provide emergency funding directly to other government entities not to nonprofit groups, she said.
Miller, the director of Refugee Aid, said she has also reached out to Phoenix officials for help either providing emergency funding to local churches or locating a city-owned building to house migrant families because the Greyhound bus station is located in Phoenix.
The number of migrants released by ICE at local churches fluctuates daily. After falling off in April, ICE is again releasing as many as 250 migrants a day at local churches, she said.
Three times in mid-May, ICE released groups of migrant families at the bus station because of a lack of capacity at local churches, she said.
The churches provide migrant families a safe place to sleep while church volunteers contact relatives or sponsors to buy bus or plane tickets. After a day or two, most migrants then continue on their way to other states, where they are instructed to report to immigration authorities to begin the legal process of applying for asylum.
Miller said without the churches, ICE would be dropping families directly at the bus station, creating a public safety hazard for the city.
“These churches are performing a public-safety function and they are not getting any assistance from the government,” she said.
Phoenix Mayor Kate Gallego did not respond to a request for an interview.
Instead, Gallego’s spokesperson, Annie DeGraw, provided a copy of a letter from the U.S. Conference of Mayors urging Congress to provide funding to communities near the border struggling with the migrant family crisis.
The letter was signed by 22 bipartisan mayors, including Gallego.
“In the past six months, ICE has released over 168,000 migrants traveling as families in our border communities,” the letter states. “Until they can connect with family or sponsors to arrange for travel, it is up to community nonprofits, faith-based organizations and local governments to provide shelter, transportation, food and other services to these migrant families. Our local taxpayer funds are being expended to address the situation and our nonprofit and faithbased organizations are at, or exceeding capacity.”
In the meantime, local churches in the Phoenix area are struggling to keep on housing migrant families released by federal authorities.
Alfredo Lopez Hernandez, pastor of Centro Cristiano De Restauracion Vino Nuevo, said his church spends about $4,500 a month providing temporary shelter, food and clothing to about 60 migrants once a week.
“We are a small church. Like 30 families. We aren’t a big church,” he said.
He said the church is considering taking a break this summer because it can’t afford the higher air conditioning bill.