As a steady stream of asylum-seekers continues to arrive at the United States’ southern border, communities—such as those in the Coachella Valley—continue to provide critical safety-net services to legally recognized migrants.
Since March 2021, 90,165 migrant asylum-seekers have made Riverside County their first stop upon entering the United States legally (as of this writing), according to Brooke Federico, Riverside County’s director of communications.
After arriving asylum-seekers are processed by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (USCBP), they are issued their immigration paperwork, given a court date for their asylum hearing, and then released to the county. Here in Riverside County, more than 2,800 new asylum-seekers, on average, have arrived in the county each month over the last 32-plus months.
“The numbers of the individuals and families received fluctuates on a daily basis,” Federico said during a recent interview. “There are times when it’s a lower number, which is where we’re currently at; fewer individuals and families (are being) received each day compared to just a few months ago. In May of this year, we were getting 150 to more than 200 individuals and families a day,” which was at or near the county’s all-time high.
Federico said the county doesn’t get involved in federal immigration policy.
“The decision as to when, where and how many individuals and families will be dropped off to local government … is entirely made by USCBP. What Riverside County has done is mobilize to be able to receive these individuals and families, so that they can receive very short-term safety-net services. Typically, it’s about one to three days while they are arranging transportation to their asylum sponsor. … Almost always, that sponsor is outside of Riverside County, or even Southern California or California. A lot of times, they’re going to other parts of the U.S.”
Asylum-seekers released by the USCBP into Riverside County will be picked up at a USCBP station by county Emergency Management Department personnel and transported to one of the county’s in-take partner facilities. In the western end of the county, those facilities are managed by the Salvation Army, while here in the Coachella Valley, the one partner organization is the Galilee Center, with facilities in Mecca and Thermal.
Gloria Gomez is the president and co-founder of the Galilee Center. According to the county, her organization has supported more than 23,000 asylum-seekers since March 2021. In a recent interview with the Independent, Gomez described what the center’s 24 team members dedicated to asylum-seeker support efforts—almost half of her total organizational team of 58—do on a near-daily basis.
“EMD picks up the people and drops them off here,” Gomez shared. “Every day, they call us and let us know how many people will be released that day. From there, our process is very simple. We call the sponsors to make sure they’re going to receive (the asylum-seekers). We figure out how (the asylum-seekers) are going to get to their final destination. Most of the sponsors will pay for the plane or bus ticket to wherever their destination is. So, basically, that’s what we do. We provide a hot meal when they get here. If they stay the night, we provide dinner, and we give them clothing. If they need medical attention, we call the Riverside County nurse. She would assess them, and tell us where to take that person, whether it’s to urgent care or an emergency room.”
For the limited occasions when an asylum-seeker has no sponsor in another part of the country, the Galilee Center has a separate program to support those individuals and help them integrate into our community.
One of the greatest challenges faced by all of the governmental and non-governmental organizations managing this ongoing flow of asylum-seekers is the wide variance in demand.
“The numbers are so unpredictable that we never know what it’s going to be,” Gomez said. “Yesterday, it was only 30 (migrant arrivals), and today, it was 58. You never know how many are coming onboard. … Once, for two weeks, it was zero, and then suddenly it was 80 in a day. We have no idea what’s going to be happening in the next two weeks, or next two months. In years before, when the weather changes and becomes so nice here in California, we see more people in November and December. Then, in January, it starts going completely down. Bottom line, we never know how many will be coming over.”
Despite this uncertainty, Federico said there have been very few instances when the county’s safety net failed.
“We do have a finite number of resources,” Federico said, “meaning county staff and staff from our non-governmental partner agencies, as well as beds at the shelters and at the partnering hotels and motels. Only on two occasions were we at capacity where we could not receive individuals, or we could not provide support. That resulted in street releases, which means that USCBP released individuals without the county being available to pick them up and provide that short term safety-net. … It was around the holidays of 2022, and you may recall there was a nationwide transportation slowdown that made it very difficult for the migrants to move on to the final destination of their journey. When we’re talking about 89,000 individuals who have been received by Riverside County, the number of individuals who were street released totaled 129 over two days. That’s really a very small number in comparison to the whole amount.”
Of course, dealing with all of these asylum-seekers requires considerable funding. Thus far, federal sources have primarily provided the necessary funds through grants to the county, some of which are disbursed to the Galilee Center.
Earlier this year, the United States Department of Homeland Security disbursed, through the Federal Emergency Management Agency Shelter and Services Program, emergency funds to mitigate the costs of supporting the arriving asylum-seekers nationwide; Riverside County received $13.1 million in funds from that program. Also in 2023, the county was the recipient of an additional $19.8 million in federal funding through the Emergency Food and Shelter Program (EFSP), bringing the county’s 2023 total for asylum-seeker support services to $32.9 million.
Dealing with all of these asylum-seekers requires considerable funding. Thus far, federal sources have primarily provided the necessary funds through grants to the county.
Federico said the $19.8 million in EFSP funding has been enough to cover this year’s costs, making the $13.1 million in FEMA funding available for use starting in January 2024.
As of now, the state of California is not contributing funds to asylum-seeker support. In the past, the state had paid for hotel and motel rooms needed to house asylum-seekers temporarily, and for COVID-19 test kits during the height of the pandemic.
The Galilee Center’s Gomez underscored just how concerned she is about her organization’s ability to meet the demand for migrant farmworker and arriving asylum-seeker needs unless funding keeps pace.
“How can we make sure that we have enough funding for all of the programs that we do—not only for the asylum seekers, but also for the farmworkers, and the food we distribute?” she asked rhetorically. “The numbers, instead of going down, are going up. … We’re always challenged to have enough funding so that we can do all the things that we do.”
Bless those that are working to help assylum seekers. You’re doing an extremely difficult job to which there is no end in sight. But, you’re saving lives and giving those opressed, abused and distressed an opportunity. If I were younger and had the means, I would help.