Yumans testify on border situation
U.s. House committee holds hearing in yuma
The U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary, also called the House Judiciary Committee, held a hearing on border issues in a packed Yuma City Hall Council Chambers on Thursday.
The committee heard testimony about the effects of the migrant surge on the Yuma community from Jonathan Lines, vice chairman of the Yuma County Board of Supervisors; Yuma County Sheriff Leon Wilmot and Dr. Robert “Bob” Trenschel, president and CEO of Yuma Regional Medical Center.
The Congressmen and women arrived Wednesday, and during their two-day stay, they toured YRMC, Yuma Community Food Bank and agriculture fields as well as met with Border Patrol agents.
Republican Jim Jordan, a U.S. representative from Ohio, chaired the House Judiciary Committee. In attendance was a delegation of Republicans. No Democrats committee members were present.
In his testimony, Trenschel noted that YRMC, over the last year and a half, has seen an increase in the number of migrants seeking care. “Some migrants come to us with minor ailments, but many of them come in with significant disease. We have had migrant patients on dialysis, cardiac catheterization and in need of heart surgery. Many are very sick. They have long-term complications of chronic disease that have not been cared for,; Trenschel said.
Some end up in the ICU for 60 days or more, he added.
Many maternity patients have had little or no prenatal care. These higher-risk pregnancies and births result in higher complication rates and longer hospital stays. Due to a lack of prenatal care, many of these babies require a stay in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, some for a month or more at a time.
He noted that migrants often require three times the amount of human resources to resolve their cases and provide them with a safe discharge as defined by federal law. That effort includes assistance locating their families, making sure they have a safe place to go when they are discharged, arranging and sometimes purchasing durable medical
equipment when needed.
“We have paid for emergency air transport when they need a higher level of care. We’ve paid for hotel rooms, taxis and car seats. We do these things because it’s the right thing to do from a humanitarian perspective but it also allows us to open a hospital bed sooner for another patient in our community.”
He added: “Our reality is this – we have delivered over $26 million in uncompensated care to these individuals in the 12-month period of time from December 2021 to November 2022 …
“I am here seeking your leadership support to find a payor source for the care we have already provided …One hospital should not, and cannot, bear the health care costs of a national migrant problem that is deeply impacting Arizona and our community. We need a revenue source for this patient population so that we can sustainably provide high quality care to all comers and remain viable for the future.”
Wilmot said he has “personally experienced ‘the good, the bad and the ugly‘ of being a border county” and his office has always had to deal with border-related crimes, death investigations and the smuggling of illicit drugs, humans, weapons and cash that are part of the transnational cartels.
“To best understand my presentation, you need to understand where we were two years ago. My county was one of the safest border communities and counties based on our collective governmental efforts, messaging and yes, delivering 100% consequence delivery and enforcement efforts against the criminal element supported by the rule of law,” he said.
He noted that apprehensions by Border Patrol were previously an average of 40 a day. On the policies of the Biden administration, Wilmot said, federal agents immediately averaged 200 a day, then 400 a day, to over 1,000 a day in apprehensions along the river corridor.
“The citizens of Yuma County and law enforcement face a huge migrant crisis along the river corridor. Last federal fiscal year, you’ve heard, there were 310,000 give-ups. So far this federal fiscal year we are currently at 93,000 in Yuma County. We had 28,000 known got-aways last federal fiscal year in this part of our county alone, and so far 5,000 is federal fiscal year,” Wilmot said, sharing a long list of other statistics to make his point.
Lines outlined what he considers the “failures of the Biden administration on the Southwest border in the Yuma Sector.” He described “a significant deterioration in border security” and noted the “record number of people crossing the border illegally from 106 different countries, 17 of those countries are what is designated ‘special interest’ because of the negative relationships with the United States.”
He also talked about the increase in the trafficking of narcotics. “Both human trafficking and drug trafficking remain at an all-time high, significantly greater than under any other administration in our history,’” Lines said.
Lines accused Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas of not keeping his word. He said that Mayorkas, during his Yuma visit last year, pledged that he would “close the Yuma gaps in the border wall and provide financial support, safety and security for the men and women who are on the front lines battling a very porous border, which support has not yet materialized from the Executive Branch.”
He shared his hope for the hearing. “My hope today through this hearing is that we can shed light on the challenges we face as a small community, as well as to remind the nation, like many elected officials have done after coming to see for themselves that every community in the United State is now a border community due to an abject failure by this administration to control and stem the tide of illegal entry along the Southwest border and to commit the take back from the cartels control of the border.”
Jordan addressed the lack of Democratic Congress members at the hearing, noting, “It’s a shame that not one Democrat member of Congress would join us on this trip despite having weeks of advance notice. It’s disappointing, but it’s not surprising. In fact, Democrats have called this a stunt.”
Referring to the witnesses, Jordan said, “Democrats dismiss the experiences of these real people that we’ve had a chance to visit within the last 24 hours, people affected by the Biden border crisis, and Democrats seem to believe that solutions can only come from bureaucrats in Washington. We actually think they come from the American people. If Democrats we’re hearing saw what we’re seeing maybe we have a chance of ending this crisis and actually securing our southern border.”
It was indeed a stunt, according to Rep. Raul Gijalva, a Democrat. “That was a stunt, and I’m glad Democrats didn’t show up because this is a serious issue,” he told the Yuma Sun. “We shouldn’t be props, and if they’re serious, let’s talk about what are some common issues around security, the ports of entry, issues of economic development for the region. All those things mesh together, you can’t ignore one over another, and unfortunately, for the members that were there today, even the ones from Arizona, really don’t have a grasp or an understanding of the borderlands and, more importantly, of the people that live there. I thought it was disrespectful of all those people, Americans, and serves no public service at all.”
Grijalva alleged that the members present at the hearing “never talk about solutions” other than “talking on issues about sealing the border … not realizing that the people in that border lands, in Yuma County, in Cochise County, in Santa Cruz County, along the Arizona-mexico border, are communities that have hardworking people, families trying to raise their kids there.
“The challenges in the humanitarian crisis that sparked up on the border are there, but those require solutions, not what I’m sure happened at the hearing, that it was more of a performative and the grievance about the border that they want to make part central part of the 2024 election.”
Meanwhile, Grijalva said, he spent the last two days visiting South County, in particular Somerton and San Luis. “I was there visiting Somerton about their new high school. I was there visiting with Amanda Aguirre (president and CEO of Regional Center for Border Health) and thanking them for the work that they’ve done in dealing with the asylum and refugee seekers. It’s not happening in the city of Yuma. It’s happening in Somerton, near their City Hall,” he said.
Xanthe Bullard, chair of the Yuma County Democratic Party, also shared her perspective on the hearing. “For decades, Republicans across the nation have used fear mongering tactics around border issues to perpetuate racist and xenophobic policies and today’s farce hearing by GOP members of the House Judiciary Committee is no different.
“It was a show designed for the 2024 elections, as evidenced by the fact that neither of the mayors of Yuma County border towns (Somerton and San Luis) were invited as witnesses. These types of cheap political stunts bring our nation no closer to finding the innovative solutions we need for comprehensive reform of our immigration system and allow our border communities to prosper,” she said.