El Paso deputy city manager: 'I envision using charters as long as we have to'

El Paso officials explained the city's decision to bus migrants out of town, a last-ditch response after area shelters had reached capacity.

Deputy City Manager Mario D'Agostino said the charter buses dispatched to New York City last week over the weekend were no different than what the city already does for migrants who are released to area shelters: providing them with COVID-19 tests, vaccines, meals and toiletries when they "pass through" the area.

"To avoid impacting service to our homeless, to avoid putting our local shelters over capacity, we went ahead and chartered that initial bus on Tuesday, Aug. 23, to New York City," D'Agostino said. "There was no plan to continue charters after that point. We thought we would see another rise in the number of people without sponsors... but we didn't see it was going to turn into an immediate need."

City officials indicated during a news conference Tuesday that they will seek reimbursement for the charters through the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

Border Patrol's El Paso Sector is facing overcrowding in its Central Processing Center holding facilities amid a rise in migration through the area. The migrants released to the city's Office of Emergency Management, at the door of the Opportunity Center for the Homeless, have been processed and possess legal paperwork to pursue immigration relief in the country.

Immigration advocates argue the city and El Paso County need to open hospitality centers with the goal of helping send the lawfully released migrants on their way to their final destinations. Center employees help them iron out travel logistics.

El Paso's largest migrant shelter, Case del Refugiado, closed earlier this month.

On Monday, D'Agostino confirmed in a statement to the El Paso Times that the city would begin working with the state this week to augment the charter buses to move migrants to destinations outside Texas. On Tuesday, D'Agostino said the immediate need may have subsided.

"I envision using charters as long as we have to," he said during the news conference, but noted that there is not a dire need currently to continue the practice in earnest.

Texas National Guard and Texas Division of Emergency Management personnel were doing intake for migrants released by Border Patrol at the Opportunity Center on Monday in preparation for a bus to depart for Chicago. There wasn't much interest, and the trip was canceled.

Gov. Greg Abbott's $12 million busing program has raised controversy, but immigrant advocates say the need for transportation options in El Paso and other border cities amid a rise in asylum seekers and other migrants seeking relief is acute.

The city's Office of Emergency Management received word Aug. 19 that 25 displaced Venezuelan migrants had turned up at the Opportunity Center on their own, with no sponsor or means to travel. Three days later, it was decided that the majority of the group wanted to travel to New York.

That's when the city chartered the initial bus to New York City.

Opportunity Center Deputy Director John Martin noted that his organization "saw an increasing number of individuals" from Venezuela over the past few weeks, all of which had been legally released. One day it was four people; the next day 10 more arrived and then there were 35 altogether. The center's capacity is 84, and the current unhoused population already totaled about 50 — so he reached out to D'Agostino for assistance.

"The trend was obvious, although it was just a short, three-day period," Martin said.

Martin said that when he announced to those gathered at the Welcome Center that they would be traveling to New York City the response was one of joy and excitement.

"With 100% confidence, I can tell you this is their choice, this is their desire and this is the direction they want to go," Martin said.

Deputy Fire Chief and Emergency Management Coordinator Jorge Rodriguez said the next challenge occurred shortly thereafter when the OEM received word last week that some 500 migrants would be released the next morning. Twenty-five families were provided hotel accommodations, others went to local shelters and plans were made to bus others directly from the Opportunity Center.

The same day that migrants departed from the Opportunity Center, Rodriguez said state representatives reached out to the city to offer charters and the OEM accepted "under the condition that OEM would continue to coordinate the effort."

"At no time was this operation ever handed over to the state," Rodriguez said. "It continues to remain our operation."

The city made plans for a bus to depart Monday, but it ultimately did not because only one person expressing an interest in making the trip. About 30 migrants were provided overnight accommodations and the charters were halted Tuesday to give overworked staff a break.

To date, buses have only accounted for 133 people, D'Agostino said, noting that there are about 900 daily apprehensions at the border, with more than 8,400 processed in August and nearly 50,000 since March.

"The city and the Office of Emergency Management is committed to continue providing those humanitarian efforts so that we can help these people passing through our community," D'Agostino said.

He insisted that the city has not yet used state-sponsored charters. The bus scheduled to depart El Paso Monday for Chicago was a state-sponsored charter, according to an OEM news release.

"This week the City/OEM is working with the state of Texas to help augment the City/OEM’s efforts to provide transportation of the migrants that do not have sponsors," the news release stated. "The City/OEM provides care packages and coordinates with officials and NGOs to receive them regardless of who is transporting. OEM and the city will continue to coordinate support as we have always done in current and previous migrant crises situations to prevent releases to the street."

The migrant busing program under Abbott's Operation Lone Star has provided transportation for free to 9,200 migrants since it began in April, delivering them to New York City and Washington, D.C.

Abbott's critics have called the busing program a political stunt. In the early days of the program, the buses were dropping people near the doorstep of the FOX News television network and without alerting leadership in those cities in advance.

U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso, has described the governor's actions as an effort "to demonize migrants and incite fear among Americans."

Abbott has said he is trying to draw attention to the ineffectiveness of the Biden administration's immigration efforts on the U.S.-Mexico border, especially in Texas.

More:Gov. Greg Abbott's migrant busing program costing Texas $12 million

While migrants have previously been bused out of El Paso to Albuquerque, Dallas and Denver as part of a partnership between the city and the Office of Emergency Management, with travel costs reimbursed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the move this week has riled some local activists.

In a statement released just ahead of Tuesday's news conference, the Border Network for Human Rights (BNHR) slammed the move as an "untransparent and confusing process.

"We demand to know under what authority and who requested the use of State of Texas resources and military personnel for these actions," BNHR Executive Director Fernando Garcia said in the news release.

"There is no so-called invasion in our region as there is no open border," Garcia continued. "This is just another political tactic from Gov. Abbott to exacerbate the humanitarian crisis at the border and manipulate federal legal provisions meant to address irregular entry from other nations into our country.

"What we are experiencing at the border is the result of a broken immigration and asylum system and the only crisis here is a humanitarian one, where all levels of government have failed to invest in a welcoming and humanitarian infrastructure."

This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: El Paso city officials explain decision to bus migrants to New York