SAN ANTONIO — As the US-Mexico border sees its latest surge of migrants, cities are scrambling to house migrants. During the first weeks of September -- border patrol agents apprehended roughly 140,000 migrants. The wave is pushing shelters in Texas to their breaking point including San Antonio’s Migrant Resource Center.
The City of San Antonio estimates 20,346 migrants came through San Antonio in September 2023 as of September 24.
With five days left in the month, that is 9,000 less than September of 2022. That number is only an estimate, though, and the CEO of Catholic Charities said after the past week -- he expects the numbers to grow.
"It’s been a stressful, ten days," said Antonio Fernandez, CEO of Catholic Charities. Ten days. That is how long Catholic Charities CEO Antonio Fernandez said the 707-person migrant resource center on San Pedro has been overwhelmed. "I think today at 2:00 PM, we have around 900 people at the facility," he said.
Many border towns have been seeing an influx of migrants, largely from Venezuela. In Eagle Pass, it was enough for the Mayor to make an Emergency Declaration. Over a quarter of the migrants passing through the Resource center since July of 2022 have been from Venezuela.
"They spend everything they have to get here to the U.S. and for us, unless we help them, they're going to be here in San Antonio for a long time,” Fernandez said “So that's why we try our best to help them as much as possible."
In Brownsville, the city hasn't seen as big of an influx as other border cities -- but Andrea Rudnick with Team Brownsville said they have to be prepared for cities to send their overflow.
"We're hearing information from other border areas about many more people than we are actually receiving,” Rudnik said.
Fernandez said though the last two weeks have been overwhelming, they've been experiencing a steady increase for months.
“Since June, more or less, we have seen an increase almost every week," Fernandez said. "To then last week, when we had over 5000 people here with us.”
Fernandez said people normally stay at the center for about 48 hours, but since the influx, that's stretched to a week. He said they don't see things slowing down for a while.
"December was the busiest week - the busiest month we had,” he said, “Our expectation now is that it's going to get busier.”
For the past two years the number of migrants transitioning through San Antonio has peaked in December. Fernandez also expects to see more people coming through from Venezuela since the Department of Homeland Security granted Temporary Protected Status to roughly 472,000 Venezuelan nationals living in the US. However, that re-designation only applies to Venezuelans in the country before July 31st, 2023.
“Temporary protected status provides individuals already present in the United States with protection from removal when the conditions in their home country prevent their safe return,” said Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas when announcing the change.
Fernandez said he’s asked the City for more funding to help get people processed and on their way more quickly so they can free up space in the shelter.
"We need more case managers, we need more security,” Fernandez said “So hopefully they're going to be able to help us. And I think that will help us with all of these expenses.”
The City of San Antonio co-operates the Migrant Resource Center with Catholic Charities. If more funding will be made available to the resource center.
A representative of the city of San Antonio said that the money would have to come through the Department of Homeland Security through its Shelter and Services Grant Program, which the city has applied for.
Catholic Charities requests that people do not bring aid donations directly to the Resource center. They say anyone who wants to help can drop off water, food, and clothing at Catholic Charities, 202 W French Pl or they can make a donation to humanitarian aid at ccaosa.org.