Sen. Ted Cruz visiting McAllen for border roundtable
6 hrs ago
Mitchell Ferman
Sen. Ted Cruz is visiting McAllen for a border security roundtable conversation on Friday.
Beyond border security, Cruz wants to listen to the concerns of local officials and see how he can best serve their needs at the federal level, Cruz’s Communications Director Catherine Frazier confirmed. Besides McAllen Mayor Jim Darling, the guest list is still being finalized. The event is invite-only.
Among the many things Darling, and others, will likely address, is McAllen's humanitarian efforts. The city has spent nearly a half-million dollars since April 2014 on immigration humanitarian work but has not yet been reimbursed by the federal government.
“It’s not fair to our taxpayers (to not get reimbursed),” Darling said at a Nov. 14 commission meeting. “But what are you going to do? These people need help and we can’t just let them wander around our town, or worse.”
Catholic Charities have also pitched in about $2 million in expenses, but they also get some donations.
April 2014 is when immigration spiked and that following summer it became a national conversation. But the immigration surge hasn’t slowed. Actually, the Humanitarian Respite Center at Sacred Heart Catholic Church downtown reached a record in October with more than 5,600 individuals helped, according to the latest data. That’s more than a 300 percent increase compared to the same month in the last two years. The last three months have been the busiest for the center since it opened in June of 2014 during a surge of unaccompanied minors and families from Central America coming through the Rio Grande Valley Border Patrol sector.
Despite international efforts to divert illegal immigration from Central America, family units surpassed those of 2014 in September with more than 77,000 apprehensions reported during Fiscal Year 2015-16, which ended on Sept. 30.
“We’ll continue to seek reimbursements,” Darling said at that meeting. “Until the United States decides to do something about its immigration policy and foreign policy in Central America, we do think it’s a continuation of the process. CBP cooperates with us, otherwise we’d have people walking around the city of McAllen at night with no place to go, and/or worse.
“No. 1, I don’t think there’s an alternative to what we’re doing. No. 2, I think we are doing a service to Dallas and Houston and everywhere else people are going because they leave here in better conditions than they’re delivered to our bus station. And thank God they don’t leave the way they arrived after their long journey to get here.”
http://www.themonitor.com/news/sen-t...e08ed5747.html
