By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
Misconceptions about the operation of a migrant processing center continue to swirl around Del Rio.
Tiffany Burrow is the director of operations for the Val Verde Border Humanitarian Coalition (VVBHC) migrant processing center, located in the city’s Chihuahua Neighborhood Center off Las Vacas Street. She spoke with the 830 Times earlier this week to dispel those misconceptions.
“Let’s first clarify that we’re an NGO, a non-governmental organization. We don’t receive funding from the government, from any level of government,” Burrow said.
“People are very concerned about where we receive money. Our money comes from partnerships. The majority of those partnerships are faith-based, but there are also major corporations involved, like Save the Children,” she said.
“An example of a faith-based organization would be something like Catholic Charities, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, UMCOR, which is the Methodist Church’s organization; and Church World Services. There are other places money can come from besides the government,” Burrow added.
She pointed out money from faith-based and private sector partners is added to the private donations the group receives.
“I think it’s also really important to note the in-kind donations, and those would be the things that are bought for us directly off our Amazon wish list, specifically for, activities like lunch-making purposes,” Burrow said.
Burrow also addressed questions about how the Val Verde Border Humanitarian Coalition spends the money it receives.
“People also want to know what we spend money on. Well, we had to completely increase our WiFi capacity here. We had to get additional basin sinks for hygiene purposes. These tables we’re sitting at. They were donated. This canopy over our heads, donated. There are also things that have to be purchased like paper for the printers, printer ink, power strips, those are all expenses,” she said.
Burrow said she and an assistant receive a stipend through a grant for their work at the facility, but all of the other workers are volunteers.
“Volunteer-wise, we’re running from a base of about 45 to 50 persons, which is our local base, but that’s kind of deceiving because it’s possible that a volunteer might only come in once a month versus someone that’s here three times a week,” she said.
“We do have people from outside of the state who have volunteered previously. Right now, I have someone who flew in from North Carolina who’d been with us before,” she said.
Burrow stressed that no funds – government or private – are used to purchase travel tickets for immigrants who arrive at the center.
“They are buying their tickets themselves. There have been a couple of instances where we have budgeted a small fraction of our funding to cover emergency cases. An emergency case would be where someone came through and their family member died – that happened last week – and they’re traumatized because of the death and because they had been robbed, and they didn’t know what they were going to do, what they were going to do.
“In that case, I had to work with an investigator, the hospital and the mortuary. So I think there are a lot of behind-the-scenes aspects to what we do that folks don’t realize,” Burrow said.
She emphasized the coalition’s first priority has always been and continues to be transitioning the migrants out of Del Rio as quickly and safely as possible.
Burrow said she addressed that question during a recent speaking engagement before the Rotary Club of Del Rio.
“I was asked, ‘What would happen if VVBHC wasn’t here?’ And my response was, ‘Del Rio would look very different,’” Burrow said.
Without the processing center every migrant entering the community would be left to shift for themselves.
Burrow said she also wanted to address the “mystery” of the Haitian immigrants who were being held under the Del Rio International Bridge in mid-September.
“There’s no mystery. It’s fully documented. I will say that for VVBHC during the week of Sept. 20 to Sept. 24, that’s a Monday through Friday, we assisted 1,664 immigrants,” she said.
“Some were deported back to Haiti. Some were taken to other stations to be processed. There’s no mystery,” Burrow added.
On the center’s peak day during the September surge, Burrow said 462 immigrants were processed.
“To put that in perspective, our last peak day was May 31, with 331 immigrants,” she said.
On the busiest day during the September surge, Burrow said, “We were pretty much running a vehicle every hour for about 10 hours.”
“We worked in coordination, in this particular instance, with a massive migrant transport center that’s in Houston, and at that location, they have 500 beds, two international airports and it’s a Greyhound hub, and they get a meal at that location. So, lots of options there,” she said.
But even with the huge surge of Haitian immigrants, September has not been the center’s busiest month.
“In August, we had 3,649, and in September, even with the surge, we had 3,594,” she said.
Those months have been the center’s busiest months to date, Burrow added.
“I also believe we’ve reached our 16,000 mark for 2021; either reached it or are very close to it,” she said.
“So let’s take that number and compare it to 2019. For that year, we had a total of 7,200, and the bulk of it came during a three-month period,” she said.
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