City councilor proposes $250K to aid asylum seekers
BY JESSICA DYER / JOURNAL STAFF WRITER
Published: Monday, April 22nd, 2019 at 5:55pm
Albuquerque Journal
https://www.abqjournal.com/1305950/city-councilor-proposes-250k-to-aid-asylum-seekers.html
Organizations including Catholic Charities, Lutheran Family Services and Albuquerque Interfaith have been working to aid the asylum-seekers bused into Albuquerque by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The groups provide food and shelter, generally for a couple of days, while the migrants await transit to meet their sponsors elsewhere in the country.
Volunteers and donations have powered the effort up to now, aiding an estimated 1,700 migrants in recent months. […]
Albuquerque Interfaith has been accepting two 50-person busloads per week.
Usually, the immigrants stay only two days, during which time organizations generally house them in hotels or churches, provide meals and clothing, and ensure they get any necessary medical care. The clothing and medical care is often donated, [one volunteer] said, so the primary expenses are shelter and food.
Customs and Border Protection officially denies that Border Patrol agents collaborate with vigilante militias to track and detain border crossers. But there’s evidence to the contrary, including the militias’ own assertions that Border Patrol is happy to have them lend a hand.
That said, CBP makes no secret of the fact that it collaborates with volunteers on the other end of the process—after tracking and detaining border crossers, when they’ve filed their asylum paperwork and it’s time to release them.
In theory, monitoring the country’s international border is exclusively the responsibility or jurisdiction of the federal government. And yet, if you cross in that region today, it’s possible that you’ll deal unofficially or quasi-officially with a number of civilians, too: first an aggressive right wing militia that holds you hostage in the desert, then a federal agent that takes you into custody and transports you to a detention facility, then a charity operated by sympathetic volunteers who want to welcome you and offer care.
What a head-spinning series of encounters. What a crash course in our country’s strange politics. Welcome to America.