By Karen Gleason
The 830 Times
Migrants moving through Del Rio on their way to other cities in the U.S. are not being tested for COVID-19, city council members learned Tuesday.
City officials told the council there are simply no resources in the local area to care for migrants who have tested positive for the novel coronavirus.
Councilman Jim DeReus raised questions about migrants who may be carrying COVID-19 after Interim City Manager John Sheedy gave an update on the city’s current COVID situation.
“I do want to talk about the migrants, because I know there are a lot of communities where the Border Patrol is testing them for COVID before (releasing them), and I know that we’re not doing that. Do we have any evidence with our contact tracing that migrants who have been released have contributed to the uptick (in COVID cases)?” DeReus asked.
“I honestly know that when the question comes up, the concern, and I need to check with the local health authority to confirm that, but I know that the few times that we’ve spoken, there’s really no indication of that, but we have to remember that most of the migrants that we’re seeing, they’re coming in, and they’re only here for a few hours. Some of them, granted, have gone into convenience stores,” Sheedy replied.
“And that is my concern, is while they’re waiting for the bus, obviously, they’re at Stripes, primarily, but they are at other places. I know one (migrant) walked up to a friend of mine the other day, looking for the nearest hotel, so they were clearly planning on spending the night before they were able to get their bus, and with the COVID positive rates that other communities are experiencing from their released migrants, that is a big concern of mine, because we clearly don’t have the transportation infrastructure to get everyone out the same day they get released,” DeReus said.
“We’re asking a lot of people to do a lot of things, and now we have this other population that we are limited on what we can actually ask them to do, for a variety of reasons, and so I think that’s just something that we need to keep on top of,” the councilman added.
“Councilman, we have tried, even going back before Delta, when the migrant situation started, there was a lot of back-and-forth about, can we test the migrants? Should we be testing migrants? And the problem that you always ran into was not so much the testing, but then the resources that you would need to quarantine people, and it just gets very intensive,” Sheedy replied.
Mayor Bruno “Ralphy” Lozano interjected that he was in “constant contact” with the city’s Washington, D.C., consultants.
“They are completely aware of the dire situation here in the city of Del Rio, and I am passing on information as it comes to me, and ensuring that we’re in contact with our federal elected officials, including Sen. Cruz, Sen. Cornyn and Congressman Gonzales. The more pressure we put on the federal side, the more we can ascertain what we can do as a community, and I just want to emphasize that that message is being shouted very loudly to them,” Lozano said.
Mayor Pro-Tem Alfredo “Fred” Carranza Jr. said he has spoken to other local elected officials, including Val Verde County Judge Lewis G. Owens Jr., about the immigrant situation regarding COVID.
“We’re not testing them, because if we test them, then we ‘own’ them, right, so we’ll have to provide for them, and we don’t have the resources to do that, as Mr. Sheedy was referring to. If we hospitalize them, it’s going to cost us, and we would have to house them and feed them, and we can’t do that. That’s a federal problem, and I’m not sure what the resolution will be, but it sure is hurting us, and it is costing us, even though we’re not housing them,” Carranza said.
—
Contact the author at delrmagnoliafan@gmail.com
