A staff member with the Casa Alitas Welcome Center gives an orientation to migrants who have just been brought from Nogales by the Border Patrol. Migrants will stay at the center for a few days while working out travel arrangements to connect with family in the U.S.
Migrants from the Rio Grande Valley in Texas are being flown to Tucson for processing.
The Department of Homeland Security has long been doing these so-called lateral transfers, a practice that sends migrants apprehended in one place with little capacity to process and care for them, to a place with more capacity.
Moving migrants within Arizona is nothing new, shelters in both Tucson and Phoenix have received asylum seekers from Yuma for months. But this week on the sidelines of a press conference, Pima County administrator Chuck Huckelberry said the county is now also receiving families from Texas.
"What is happening is the Rio Grande Valley is at capacity, and so Department of Homeland Security is now flying in asylum seekers for processing in other parts of the country, and we happen to be one of those other locations," he said. "We presently have capacity, we process all of ours through Casas Alitas, which is a county facility, and through contracts with hotels and motels."
Casa Alitas is a Tucson shelter run by Catholic Community Services. Huckleberry said about 130 migrants have arrived from Texas so far, and said right now, Pima County facilities have the capacity to help. Casa Alitas has been giving COVID tests, offering vaccines and housing anywhere from 40-130 migrants a day from various ports in Arizona.
A Customs and Border Protection spokesperson in Arizona confirmed the Tucson transfers and said migrants from Texas are flown to Tucson and processed at a Border Patrol facility in town before either being released to local NGOs, sent to immigration detention facilities or returned across the border to Mexico under Title 42.
Christopher Conover contributed to this report.
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