By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
The number of migrants passing through Del Rio has leveled off after increasing slightly in early May, and the director of the migrant processing center says she’d like a little forbearance from the community for the work being done there.
Tiffany Burrow, operations director of the Val Verde Border Humanitarian Coalition’s migrant processing center in Del Rio, spoke to the 830 Times last week about the numbers of migrants passing through the center over the past month.
“Heading up to (the end of) Title 42 (on May11), we saw a little bit of an increase, and the peak happened the day before, and the day of, we saw a steady decrease. It’s been very steady, but it’s not overwhelming. It’s not this big, out-of-control issue,” Burrow said of recent activity at the center.
Burrow said she is currently seeing between 60 and 125 persons moving through the center every day.
Migrants are departing the processing center in Del Rio on Greyhound buses, charter buses or buses provided by the state.
Burrow said she is once again seeing mainly migrants from Central America.
“(We’re seeing) a lot of people from Honduras. There are some Venezuelans. Then there will be a couple from Cuba, a couple from El Salvador, a couple from Guatemala, like that,” Burrow said.
She said earlier in the year, she saw migrants from “what we would consider unusual countries,” but “in the last month, no.”
Burrow said one of the reasons the migrant processing center here continues operating smoothly is the hard work of the many volunteers.
“We’ve been incredibly blessed with mission groups from all over Texas and even beyond. The group that’s here now, that’s been with us all week, is from Monahans, Texas, and this is their third summer of volunteering here, so they’ve got it down.
“It’s wonderful to work with groups of people on a regular basis like that, so these are not new faces. They’re friends, and that’s pretty much happening the whole entire summer and on through the early fall, that we will have these out-of-town volunteers helping out, and they work right alongside our local volunteers,” Burrow said.
She said the local volunteers update their out-of-town counterparts on any changes that have been made or brief them on any new protocols, as well as remind them of what has stayed the same.
“It’s great to see everyone working together for a common goal,” she said.
Burrow said what she’d like from the Del Rio community is a little more tolerance and forbearance of the work being done at the center.
“A little understanding would go far,” she said.
“I’m always looking for opportunities to clarify what it is that we do and what we don’t do. There’s a lot of misinformation out there,” Burrow said.
“There’s frustration in the local community not understanding fully what’s going on here,” she added.
She said one thing she would like the community to really understand is how the migrant processing center here is funded.
“We’re privately funded. We are not funded by the federal government or by the city or the county or the state. None of those. And the other thing is that we are not buying tickets for people,” Burrow said.
“People are coming through and figuring out what works best for them, and their families or their sponsors are buying their tickets. Some of them have money on them. Some of them have been robbed. When that happens, they reach out and within their circle, and someone in that circle, family, relatives, friends, whatever, will buy the ticket for them. We’re not the ones buying the tickets,” she added.
Burrow has said repeatedly the center exists to move migrants out of the Del Rio area as quickly and safely as possible.
“One of the differences we here at the VVBHC is that we are able to explain and offer and show what the options are for them, because sleeping on the streets here in Del Rio isn’t an option,” Burrow said.
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