Some U.S. Southern Border towns are being notified that they’re about to become repositories for an expected overflow amid a crush of illegal immigration.
Mike Laws is mayor of Willcox, Arizona, a town about 65 miles north of the Mexico border. He says he doesn’t have the money or resources to take care of the foreigners who may be released there.
“I don’t have soup kitchens. I don’t have a facility to even put someone in, to put beds in,” Laws told me.
Border Patrol says its plan is to escort illegal border crossers to towns like Willcox, point them in the direction of the local Greyhound bus stop, and let them go while they await asylum court dates that are sometimes years down the road.
By one count, 90% of the illegal immigrants never show up in court.
Mayor Laws say his biggest immediate concern is what he just learned at the meeting he called with Border Patrol to confirm the rumors. Unlike US citizens returning from foreign travel… the illegal immigrants will be brought in and released with no Covid testing.
Willcox City Councilwoman Rachel Garza questioned the lead Border Patrol agent at the Willcox Station at the February 18 meeting.
“You guys are not doing [covid] testing, and just putting them out the next day to let them deal with it?” Garza asked.
“So it’s a good question. And the answer, the short answer is no, we are not testing,” replied Border Patrol Agent Alexander Blais.
I asked Mayor Laws if he knew why the illegal immigrants were not going to be tested for the disease, while Americans are required to provide negative test if they’ve left the country and want to return.
“They did not [say why],” Laws told me. “They just said they had orders not to, but yet, we check ourselves for COVID, if we get sick. And then he said, ‘Well, take them to the hospital.’ I asked Moe, the head of the hospital, I said, ‘So what do you think about that?’ She goes, ‘I have 24 beds, and they’re full. I can’t take any’.”(
In just the last four months, border officials say they have intercepted and expelled more than 296,000 illegal border crossers.
“So right now we’re about a hundred percent over where we were this time, this last fiscal year. We’ve already surpassed in the first four months of this fiscal year. We’ve already surpassed all of 2018. If the flow continues at the rate it is here, by the end of this fiscal year, we will have surpassed 18, 19 and 20, all combined,” says Border Patrol’s John Modlin.
This past week, President Biden’s Homeland Security chief told reporters there is no crisis at the border, and said they are simply fixing President Trump’s mess.
“I think there is a challenge at the border that we are managing, and we have our resources dedicated to managing it,” said Alejandro Mayorkas. “We are operating under a broken immigration system, and we need to fix it.”
