The Register Citizen (Torrington, CT)
State asking cities, groups to prepare for busloads of migrants
State officials have asked cities to be prepared in case Connecticut receives busloads of migrants from the U.S. southern border.
The request was in response to Texas sending busloads of migrants to major cities, such as Philadelphia and New York City, last year, according to Scott Appleby, Bridgeport’s emergency management director.
Connecticut Department of Social Services officials made the request in a December discussion on “mass migration preparedness,” he said in a statement to Hearst Connecticut Media.
“The synergy behind the request was based upon the current migration crisis that is occurring down south at the borders,” Appleby said.
Connecticut is not expecting the arrival of immigrants beyond refugees and special immigrant visa holders, including Iraqi and Afghan nationals who helped U.S. combat missions in their countries, said DSS spokesman David Dearborn.
“We are not expecting an influx at this time; but we need to be prepared for that potential — just in case — and this is the subject of ongoing discussions,” said Dearborn, who declined to answer further questions about his department’s request to city officials in December.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is preparing for the end of Title 42, a public health measure that has been used by the federal government to expel migrants at the southern border. Dearborn said state and city officials and nonprofit workers are preparing for a potential increase in migrants to Connecticut, especially if the order faces “significant federal changes.”
But in a discussion on homelessness this month, Ebony Jackson-Shaheed, Bridgeport’s director of health and social services, said city officials were asked how they would provide short-term and long-term housing for migrants.
“To be honest with you, that’s very difficult at this point when we do not have housing,” said JacksonShaheed, who declined an interview after the discussion.
If Bridgeport were to receive busloads of migrants, it would temporarily house them under the same process for emergencies and disasters, said Appleby.
That process includes temporarily sheltering people in schools or other public buildings, Appleby said. People staying at those facilities would be registered and fed, according to the city’s “emergency shelters and mass care” plan. For the long term, people would be transferred to temporary housing in places such as rental units, motels or hotels, according to the plan.
Chris George, executive director of the New Haven-based Integrated Refugee & Immigrant Services,
said his organization has discussed preparations in case Connecticut receives two busloads of migrants. The nonprofit would take a similar approach to when it received hundreds of refugees in the months following the 2021 Afghanistan evacuation, George said.
That fall, the refugee resettlement agency received about 400 Afghan refugees over four months. George said the organization placed most of them in hotels in New Haven, while about a quarter of them went across the state to volunteer groups, which would find housing for them. By February 2022, all of those refugees were in permanent homes, George said.
During that time, the group was able to use state and federal funds to pay for hotels and housing for the Afghan refugees. But he said it’s unclear whether those currently eligible for humanitarian parole, such as Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, Haitians and Cubans, would be eligible for similar government aid programs.
If they aren’t eligible, “We might not have enough federal government money to cover the hotels. We might have to use private funding,” George said.
“We would need help,” he said.