EMMA PIRHALA / ASST.  NEWS EDITOR

RITI DEY / ASST. NEWS EDITOR

The San Diego Migrant Welcome Center shut down on Thursday, Feb. 21, due to a lack of funding. When operational, the Welcome Center was operated by South Bay Community Services (SBCS) an organization that supports families in San Diego.The welcome center provided phone chargers, meals and a place to rest and served over 81,000 migrants who arrived since October 2023. However, the services came with a price tag of $6 million to San Diego County and its taxpayers.  

When the Welcome Center closed, hundreds of migrants were released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents to a San Ysidro bus stop on Friday, Feb. 22. More than 2,000 immigrants were dropped off at transit stops across the county in a span of three days.

USD senior Shayla Rodriguez shared her thoughts on this situation as the co-chair of the Association of Chicanx Advocates at USD. 

“This situation and similar situations like these is indeed deeply disheartening and infuriating, yet sadly not surprising,” Rodriguez said. 

Rodriguez highlighted the issue of a lack of funding. 

“This  situation highlights only one of many of the challenges immigrants face, such as the inadequate funding and policies that fail to prioritize their well-being. Addressing the funding gaps in organizations supporting immigrants and refugees is important and worth advocating for.”

An influx of asylum-seekers at the San Diego border within recent months caused nearly 800 migrants to travel to the Welcome Center daily, which reduced the Center’s funds. According to publicly available data from CBP, there have been over 120,000 encounters with migrants at San Diego’s border since the start of the fiscal year in October 2023.  In comparison to   the previous fiscal year to date, there  has   been    an    increase of 74% in  encounters by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

A CBP spokesperson issued a statement in an email to The USD Vista about the causes of the recent influx of migrants.

“CBP  continues to surge personnel, transportation, processing and humanitarian resources to the most active and arduous areas throughout San Diego’s border region where migrants    are  being callously placed by smuggling organizations,” the CBP spokesperson, Michael Scappechio, explained.

    “CBP coordinates to the fullest extent possible with state, local and non-governmental partners to ensure the safe and orderly onward movement of migrants when they are released from our custody following screening and vetting as part of their immigration proceedings.” 

CBP described the need for funding and policy change.

“This  situation is the latest example of the pressing need for Congress to provide additional resources and take legislative action to fix our outdated immigration laws.”

     USD  Adjunct Law Professor and Supervising Attorney at USD’s Immigration  Legal  Clinic   Tammy Lin disagreed with CBP’s  claim  that smuggling  operations   caused the recent increase in encounters with migrants at the border. 

“There  are always going to be these smugglers unless they stop it.  The migration routes have not changed.  Even in 2008, folks would be coming from the other side of the world and they would end up in Tapachula and then Mexico and make their way up…With social media, there’s less of a reliance on these smuggling routes because before they were the only ones that knew what to do, where to go, everything like that,” Lin explained. 

  Instead,  she connected the influx of migrants   to    a     variety of reasons. 

“First, the policies from the [Trump] administration tried to force everyone to stay on the Mexican side of the border. It created  a  huge   backlog   of cases and forced   the  border courts to only handle the cases at the  border.” 

 However, Lin agreed with CBP’s call      for      updated  immigration laws.

 “The last   major   overhaul    was in the ‘90s… it’s   like  if you have  work,  and you’re not using the most up-to-date Microsoft Windows   or Mac iOS,  you are using something   from the ‘90s and it is not going  to work well,” Lin said

 USD first-year Priya Hecox reflected on her initial reaction to the situation. 

  “I was extremely upset when I heard about this,” Hecox explained. “San Diego is so close to the border that we cannot afford to be closing   down centers that  are such   an obvious   need to our community…The closure of the center is showing blatant disregard for a huge part of our community.” 

 With immigration being a contentious topic coming out of the primary elections, Hecox reflected  on  the way  that   the issue  has been  handled  politically. 

“My opinions on Biden’s  handling of the border crisis are pretty   much    the    same as our past presidents.  It  is not far up enough on [Biden’s] list of priorities  as  it needs to be,” Hecox said. “I  also think that he and other local politicians   do not  treat the   border crisis with the mindset that they are dealing with actual people. Biden’s administration sees the  issue regarding numbers: numbers of people, number of jobs, the economy, etc. Not the fact that they are all people with lives, families and are coming with a variety of needs.”

  The San Diego Board of Supervisors approved a plan to search for federal and philanthropic funding for a new migrant center on Tuesday, Feb. 27. The approval came down to a 4-1 vote with Supervisor Jim Desmond in opposition. 

  “By   allowing    this   federally funded long-term shelter here, it’s just being complicit with the federal government and the current mess,” Desmond stated to NBC 7. 

  Although County Supervisors considered asking the federal government to temporarily shut down the border, the motion was ultimately rejected. 

 The  humanitarian crisis continues, as migrants are still being left at bus stops rather than being housed temporarily in the San Diego  Migrant Welcome Center.

Over 1,500 migrants were dropped at transit centers in San Diego after a welcome center closed.  Photo courtesy of @bowlersdesk/Instagram