Karen Gleason
Del Rio is once again ground zero for federal immigration policies, with increasing numbers of asylum-seeking migrants being released into the community.
Those increasing numbers mean operations are again ramping up at the Chihuahua Neighborhood Facility on Las Vacas Street, where members of the Val Verde Border Humanitarian Coalition (VVBHC) work to help migrants leave the Del Rio area.
VVBHC President Shon Young and Tiffany Burrow, VVBHC director of operations and a board member of the organization, spoke to The 830 Times on Wednesday about the latest migrant situation.
VVBHC leased the neighborhood facility from the city in the spring of 2019, when Border Patrol officials informed the city and county they would begin releasing large numbers of immigrants seeking asylum in the United States.
Burrow said the facility has been open continuously since the 2019 migrant crisis.
“We’ve been running all through COVID,” Burrow said.
Young said the organization recently got a heads-up about the increase in releases from the Border Patrol.
“Border Patrol reached out to us and said, ‘Get ready, start making preparations.’ So we started fine-tuning and seeing what we could do to help with the situation again, to get ready for higher numbers,” Young said.
Burrow said the current groups of migrants are once again mostly families seeking asylum in the U.S.
“Things had slowed down, and that brings us to October of 2019, and so from October 2019 until 2020, the majority of the migrants have been Haitians, Africans from Cameroon, Ghana, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and then there’s been some from Venezuela and other countries,” Burrow said.
Burrow said the river of immigrants slowed in the spring of 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic gripped the world.
“In June and July 2020, we helped maybe 25 people each month, and then came the fall and it started to increase again, but in those fall months, we had maybe 250, 275 people. This month, up until this week, we had seen 84 people. Yesterday, we had 51,” Burrow said.
“We are offering short-term assistance, providing food, providing clothing, providing showers. The primary focus is an opportunity for them to reach out to their relatives, their sponsor,” Burrow added.
Previously, the VVBHC worked with local transport companies, who carried some of the migrants to San Antonio for a fee.
Burrow said the current transportation situation is different and “still evolving.”
“Yesterday afternoon, we received notice that there had been some releases by the Border Patrol and that the released persons had just started walking down Highway 90. A community member saw them, turned her car around and picked up a significant number and brought them back here. She then went back and got the rest of them,” Burrow said.
Burrow and Young said they’re not sure how the operation will evolve moving forward.
Burrow said VVBHC currently needs monetary donations from the community for food and for transportation like taxi fares from the neighborhood facility to the Greyhound bus station.
Volunteers, especially those who can speak Spanish and French, are also needed. But volunteers are also needed to clean the facility after-hours. Other volunteers could pack lunches or wash towels at their homes, Young said.
If you’d like to make a donation or to sign up to be volunteer, visit the VVBHC’s web site at www.vvbhcoalition.com
