Karen Gleason
roups of migrants seeking asylum in the United States are finding a safe place to land, at least temporarily, at the Chihuahua Neighborhood Center in Del Rio.
Members of the Val Verde Border Humanitarian Coalition, an inter-faith group of volunteers, operate the center and have done so continuously since the spring of 2019, when large groups of asylum-seekers first began arriving in Del Rio.
Over the past week, an increase in the number of migrants arriving in Del Rio has meant a sharp increase in work for the volunteers.
“We’ve essentially gone from working one day a week to seven days a week, sunup to sundown,” Tiffany Burrow, director of operations and a VVBHC board member, said Thursday.
Burrow said a group of 34 migrants was dropped off at the center by Border Patrol at 5 p.m. Wednesday, and another group of 13 was delivered just before lunch on Thursday.
“The drop-offs are consistently inconsistent,” Burrow said with a wry smile.
Once the migrants arrive at the center, Burrow said, volunteers fluent in Spanish and sometimes in French, begin working with them to contact migrants’ family members or sponsors already living in the United States.
More importantly, the VVBHC volunteers immediately begin helping the migrants make arrangements for transportation out of Val Verde County.
On Thursday, when the 830 Times visited the center, VVBHC volunteer Jose Calouro helped a group of Haitian nationals arrange for tickets on America Airlines. One member of the group, 29-year-old Auguste Clomone, said she and her group were traveling to West Palm Beach, Fla.
But migrants who arrive at the Chihuahua Center get more than help with travel arrangements.
It’s also a place for them to briefly rest and refuel before they continue their journeys.
Burrow said each family receives a backpack containing a resealable plastic bag containing hygiene essentials: a toothbrush, toothpaste, two bars of soap, small towels and a comb.
Burrow said groups like the Red Cross and various churches donated the hygiene kits.
Migrants also have a chance to use one of several portable showers on site.
“That’s the thing they ask for most consistently, is a shower,” Burrow said.
Burrow said volunteers also try to provide the migrants with a meal.
“We don’t have a kitchen facility on-site, so at first we were just going to H-E-B and getting prepared chicken, rice and beans for everyone, but that was costing us $100 to $150, depending on the number of people we were feeding, and we couldn’t sustain that,” she said.
Burrow said currently one of the volunteers uses a grill outside the center to prepare meat, while other volunteers provide crockpots filled with corn and beans.
Burrow said the backpacks given to each migrant family also include a snack pack containing protein-heavy snacks like peanut butter crackers, Vienna sausages, ready-to-eat packages of tuna, granola bars, trail mix, raisins, and juices.
