Border Patrol Flies Migrants From Texas To San Diego

Speaker 1: 00:00 The U s border patrol is flying hundreds of migrant families from south Texas to San Diego. The move is an effort to even the workload for the border patrol sector in Texas, Rio Grande Valley, whose as they can't keep up with the surge of Central American migrants crossing into the u s they're joining me to discuss this new program is Kate Morrisey a reporter with the San Diego Union Tribune. Kate, welcome. Hi. Thanks for having me. Uh, the first flight of migrants arrived in San Diego on Friday. How many migrants will be processed here in San Diego under this program? So each flight, uh, we've been told has between 120 and 135 people on it. And we are currently supposed to be receiving three flights a week. So if you do the math, that's between 360 and 390 additional people a week. And these are all families. So some of those will be adults and some of those will be children. Speaker 1: 00:51 And do we know how long this program is expected to last? We were told this is going to go on indefinitely. The, the phrase they used was a contingency program while this need is present in Texas and while the capacity is available here in San Diego. And can you talk to us about how the number of migrants coming to the Rio Grande Valley compares to the number coming here to San Diego? So they receive a much larger number of people than we do by five or six times more, more people sort of depending on the month. Last month we received maybe 6,000 and some people, 2000 or so of those were families. The Rio Grande was I believe in the 30 thousands 20 or 30 thousands in terms of the overall number of people. So it's, it's a big difference and it's notable to that between March and April. Numbers I believe went up in the Rio Grande Valley area and we actually saw a drop here in San Diego. Speaker 1: 01:48 So we had less people arrived last month than we did the month before. So I guess ostensibly we have a little bit more wiggle room. And do we know why that is? I mean, why are we seeing a large number of migrants coming to the Rio Grande Valley? So that's actually a pretty long time trend. The Rio Grande Valley has been receiving, uh, the largest portion of people crossing the border for, for quite some time. As you may know, historically back in the day, San Diego was, was a much bigger draw, but with all of the, the added infrastructure at the border that shifted migration east into the desert and into Texas. And that's something that we continue to see to this day that it happens more. Uh, we see a lot more of the particularly illegal border crossings and other parts of, of the border. And can you walk us through the process? The migrants coming to San Diego will undergo. Speaker 1: 02:38 Sure. So, um, they come here on a plane there, then bused to a border patrol station. And from there they go through pretty much the same thing that anyone caught crossing the border in the San Diego area would go through. They are processed by border patrol agents at the border patrol stations. Um, they stay in the holding cells while they wait for their turn in that process, they have their photos taken, they're fingerprinted, they're interviewed. Um, that's the point also at which if they're going to say, you know, I'm afraid to go back to my home country, I want asylum. Some version of, of that statement that's usually, usually when that happens is during that interviewing time, while they're there in the holding cells there just sort of waiting for, for all of these different parts of the process to happen. Um, there's some amount of, of background checking and checking of documents and things like that that that goes into the processing border patrol then hands them off to ice and ice is the agency that determines custody. Speaker 1: 03:36 So whether they'll be released, whether there'll be sent to a detention center that's up to ice and if they're being released, ice has been tending to release. Family's very quickly. Often they end up at the San Diego rapid response network shelter that's here in downtown San Diego where there then helped to make connection with whoever it is they were hoping to stay with friends, family. And then they move on to their final destination. So it's, it's not likely that most of these folks will end up staying in San Diego. And how will, how will all of this impact the migrant shelter here? So it depends a little bit on, on how quickly border patrol is processing folks. You know, it just because 120 come on one day doesn't mean that that day or the next day, the same 120 we'll all be released. We don't really know how quick that turnaround is going to be, whether the shelter is going to receive them all in one day or over the course of several days. Speaker 1: 04:33 The shelter has its capacity, but then it also has several churches that are, are willing to temporarily offer space on nights when the shelter is already at capacity or, or looking at being over capacity. So they do have some ability to shift what their capacity is on a given night if there's a bigger release than they can handle in their space. Um, so as far as far as what they've told me as of Friday, they said, you know, we're, we're going to keep handling this just like we've been handling the arrivals here. And uh, they, they made another push for, for there to be a more, a more permanent shelter established because this shelter as of right now is something that is, has, has the current space up until the end of this calendar year, um, through the county. But we don't know what it's, it's longterm fate will be. And do we know if some of them migrants coming to the area on these flights will be sent to Mexico under the migrant protection protocols program? Speaker 1: 05:33 That's a great question. And I've asked border patrol have that question on Friday. I'm still waiting to find out what the answer to that question is. We don't know yet. And are there other areas of the country that are also receiving migrants from Texas for processing? So there are actually other sectors within Texas that are receiving some folks from the Rio Grande Valley area. Um, there are other parts of the, that my understanding is it's, it's up for discussion. There's, there's, um, planning going on about whether it would be possible to send them to some sections of the northern border as well as Florida, but there's nothing concrete in place yet to say yes, that's happening. I've been speaking with Kate Morrisey, a reporter with the San Diego Union Tribune. Kate, thank you so much. Thank you. Speaker 2: 06:21 [inaudible].