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Senator heard from non-governmental organizations about how theyre using funding she secured to prepare for the end of Title 42

WASHINGTON Arizona senior Senator Kyrsten Sinema held meetings with Arizona nonprofits including International Rescue Committee, Casa Alitas, and the Regional Center for Border Health to discuss how theyre preparing for the end of Title 42 on May 11.Arizona non-profits make Arizona communities safer and more secure and help ensure migrants are treated fairly and humanely. Were working together to ensure Arizona non-profits on the front lines of the migration crisis have the resources they need ahead of Title 42s end, said Sinema, Chair of the Senate Border Management Subcommittee.In order to prevent street releases in Arizona and across the Southwest border, non-profits and local governments need consistent, dependable funding streams. Since 2019, Sinema has secured over $1 billion for migrant services through the Emergency Food and Shelter Program (EFSP) and the new Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Shelter and Services Grant Program (SSP).The Administration will end COVID-19-related emergency declarations on May 11, which will also remove the basis for Title 42. Sinema recently questioned Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas about the Administrations plans to manage increased levels of migration following Title 42s permanent suspension. Following her questioning, the Senator remains concerned that the Administration is not prepared to handle the anticipated surge of encounters.For more than a year, Sinema has urged the Administration to implement a comprehensive plan to prepare for the anticipated surge of encounters when Title 42 ends.

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Ahead of Administration's Title 42 Suspension, Sinema Meets with ... - Kyrsten Sinema

This post first appeared in the May 4 Morning Report. Subscribe to the newsletter here.

With the looming expiration of the federal governments order under Title 42, San Diego is bracing for what could be a significant influx of migrants seeking asylum who were turned away during the pandemic. But its still unclear what the actual plan is.

Nearly three months ago, the San Diego County Board of Supervisors directed Chief Administrative Officer Helen Robbins-Meyer to prepare for the arrival of asylum seekers entering the U.S. to lessen the impact on the regions growing homelessness crisis.

On Wednesday, Michael Workman, the countys director of communications, said a comprehensive long range plan is headed to the board soon.

In the meantime, county officials have been meeting with other agencies and service providers and prepared a list of unused and underused properties that may be used to build out shelter infrastructure. Theyve also petitioned federal representatives for help.

Vargas asked the regions congressional delegation for immigration reform legislation and funding. Supervisor Joel Anderson also pointed out that Congress made $800 million available last year for shelter and other migrant services, but the administration has yet to release the money to local governments and organizations.

Those seeking safety and asylum in our country have a right to humane treatment and local entities cannot bear the brunt of this need created by federal policies, Vargas wrote.

How we got here: The Trump administration put Title 42 to use on the rationale that it would limit the spread of Covid-19, and the U.S. Supreme Court kept the restrictions in place longer than planned. So when the shelters reached capacity, federal authorities just dropped hundreds of people onto the streets.

Lisa Halverstadt reported last fall that dozens of migrants were staying in city-funded homeless shelters amid a spike in border arrivals. Shelter providers struggled to connect migrants to resources they typically tap into to aid homeless San Diegans.

Deadline looms: CBS 8 reports that the Biden administration is sending 1,500 more troops to the southwest border to help when Title 42 expires on May 11. Exhausted migrants, some of whom said they hadnt eaten in days, are already lining up. Some are being transported to Border Patrol stations to get the process of asylum started. Other border communities, like El Paso, have already declared a state of emergency.

San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria has also met with federal officials. Ultimately, the only real solution is for Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reform that constructively addresses this issue and ends this cycle of crises that have a profound impact on American cities, he said in a statement.

Clarification: This post was updated to clarify how Title 42 is used.

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With Another Migrant Crisis Around Corner, San Diego Begs Feds ... - Voice of San Diego

In September 2022, a record-high number of migrants were bused into New York City, with at least nine buses reaching the city on a single Sunday. The Republican governors in Texas, Arizona and Florida claimed their operation to transport migrants to so-called sanctuary jurisdictions like NYC is designed to pressure Democratic politicians and the Biden administration to enact tougher border measures that will deter illegal crossings.

For Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis who continues to callously ship and demonize migrants, seeing them as mere political pawns they have provided an issue for his likely run for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. He has chosen charged cultural issues as his political signature, trying to top Donald Trump at his own game while projecting an image that he is free of all of Trumps baggage. He has attacked migrants, transgender people and gays while supporting gun rights, making the death penalty easier to impose as well as tightening abortion as a way of endearing himself with the Floridian and national right-wing base.

Florida might be the place that DeSantis complacently informs us is where woke goes to die, but its also where teachers salaries are among the lowest in the nation, unemployment benefits are extremely low and DeSantis campaigned against a successful ballot initiative to raise the states minimum wage from $8.65 an hour.

Its one more reason for DeSantis to promote the culture wars so the electorate is diverted from the prime aims of his rule: starving programs committed toward bettering the lives of ordinary people so he can maintain low taxes on the wealthy and corporations. Florida also has no income tax for individuals, and its corporate tax rate of 5.5 percent is among the lowest in the nation. One can only hope that DeSantis has overreached politically by promoting an extremely hard-right-wing line on a raft of issues in a state that is not, for the most part, linked to the deep South culturally and socially. DeSantis continues to reach out to the center-right and Orthodox Floridian Jews by signing legislation that will expand Floridas school choice program and visiting Israel to deliver the keynote address at a high-profile event hosted by The Museum of Tolerance Jerusalem.

DeSantis and other governors cynical and repellent actions have had painful consequences for New York City. There are projections that the city alone could spend up to $1 billion this year to adequately support the migrants with food, housing education and employment. Some 200 asylum-seekers arrive in the city every day, and it costs $380 per day per household to provide them with food and shelter, according to City Hall. Most of the migrants, about 34,600 of them, are being put up in taxpayer-funded emergency shelters mostly hotels with thousands more dropped off at eight Humanitarian Emergency Response and Relief Centers. Sleeping in the shelters often results in many complaints, especially about children having no access to health care and sometimes coming to school with diarrhea or families experiencing chickenpox outbreaks.

Camille Mackler, executive director of the Immigrant Advocates Response Collaborative, one of the many NYC nonprofits that offer legal support, says they are overwhelmed:

Ive been an immigration lawyer for 20 years and Ive never ever gone through what Ive experienced in the last six months or year, Mackler says. Absolutely no one can take cases.

There is no way of avoiding dealing with the oppressiveness of the conditions that the migrants face.

Mayor Eric Adams and others have called the cost for temporary housing, medical care and other support impossible to sustain. In Adams words: While our city may be the face of the asylum seeker crisis, it is not a crisis we can solve on our own. A comprehensive response from all levels of government especially from our state and federal partners is needed. Adams has directly criticized President Joe Biden for failing New York City in dealing with the migrant crisis. He indicated he wants the federal government to grant temporary protected status to asylum-seekers so they can receive work permits because many of the migrants are being exploited and mistreated. Hopefully, the president will want to avoid having a Black Democratic mayor of the countrys largest city be angry with him. In fact, following Adams remarks, a spokesperson for the White House said the federal government would announce additional migrant funding in the coming weeks.

There are no easy answers to the deluge of migrants. No city can carry the burden without an immense amount of aid. At the same time, NYC cannot morally emulate DeSantis and heartlessly pass the problem on to other localities. Its a painful quandary that must be resolved.

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Leonard Quart: In NYC, practical costs and moral stakes of a migrant ... - Berkshire Eagle

EL PASO, Texas (KFOX) Rep. Veronica Escobar announced El Paso, Texas, will be getting $12.5 million in emergency food and shelter funds for the migrant crisis.

El Paso is among 35 local government and service organizations listed to get help.

As of Thursday, there are more than 2,000 migrants in south El Paso, in addition to migrants on the U.S. side of the border wall in the Lower Valley.

A statement from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security stated this is one component of DHSs multi-agency plan to manage increased encounters at the border and support communities when the Title 42 public health order lifts.

The next round of funding is expected to focus on the needs of interior cities, in addition to border communities.

New York is receiving the significant amount in this and the next round of funding, according to DHS.

El Paso has received $22 million from the federal government, according to Mayor Oscar Leeser. Lesser said the city of El Paso has $15 million available to use.

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$12.5 million in funding coming to El Paso, Texas for migrant crisis - KPIC News

SFAX, Tunisia, May 4 (Reuters) - Bodies of drowned migrants wash up most days on Tunisian beaches, lie unclaimed in hospital corridors and fill morgues, evidence of a surge in people seeking to cross the Mediterranean that has been accelerated by a government crackdown.

Coastguard patrols return to the port of Sfax crammed with migrants stopped at sea in flimsy, overcrowded boats from making the perilous voyage to what they hope will be a better life in Europe.

The number of migrants embarking upon the Mediterranean has risen overall, but the number leaving Tunisia has exploded, with more caught by coastguard patrols than in any previous year, senior National Guard official Houssem Eddine Jebabli said.

The Coastguard told Reuters it has stopped 17,000 people at sea in the first four months of 2023, compared to 3,000 in the same period of 2022.

The numbers spiked after a crackdown on migrants from Sub-Saharan African countries in February that President Kais Saied announced using language the African Union condemned as racialised. Many migrants reported suffering racist attacks.

"Let us go! Your president expelled us but now you are stopping us leaving," shouted a man from the Ivory Coast, who gave his name as Ibrahim, taken aboard a Coastguard ship with his wife and two infant children after they were stopped at sea.

"We were evicted from our home, people threw stones at our house," he said, explaining why they had to leave Tunisia. His comments were echoed by other African migrants Reuters met after their boats were intercepted.

Within minutes of Reuters boarding Coastguard Ship 3505 in Sfax, the captain registered a likely migrant boat on the radar on a course for Italy's Lampedusa island, the main migrant destination.

Over the following hours, Reuters watched the Coastguard stop five boats and track four others it did not have time to chase.

As the crammed boats emerged in the darkness, some with children on board, some migrants begged to be left to continue their voyage. Others tried to resist or evade capture.

On one boat, Reuters saw migrants throwing metal bars at the Coastguard, fighting them with sticks and threatening to throw themselves into the sea. On another, the Coastguard disabled the engine by smashing it with poles.

The tactic of smashing engines has been criticised by migrant rights groups who say some boats have been left rudderless at sea, prey to the waves and in danger of sinking.

Jebabli, the National Guard official, denied imperilling migrants and said Coastguards were increasingly threatened at sea when stopping migrant boats.

Back on the main ship, the captain fired a weapon into the air trying to quell a protest by 200 migrants on board as many angrily demanded to be allowed to go on to Italy.

Some threw confiscated boat engines at the 10 Coastguards on board. Others threatened to set themselves on fire. One man jumped into the sea and was hauled out.

The cost of an illicit voyage is falling as migrants rely less on Tunisian fishing boats and buy their own metal craft made cheaply and meant for only a single journey.

Passage to Italy was previously 5,000 dinars ($1,600) but is now only 1,000 dinars, a police official said, with migrants evenly splitting the cost of the boat and engine.

It costs only 2,000 dinars to make a metal boat that can be sold for 20,000 and ever more people near the coast are doing so, a resident of Sfax's Jebiniana district said, showing Reuters houses that had recently been used for the purpose.

Migrants Reuters interviewed coming off the Coastguard boats said they would try to cross again soon.

But on a stretch of Sfax coastline Reuters saw five bodies that had washed up, one a young boy in jeans and a white T-shirt. The Coastguard recovered four others nearby.

The main city hospital was storing 200 bodies, most outside the small morgue lying stacked in bags on the corridor floors. Patients complain of the terrible smell. "We cannot bear it any more," said a nurse.

Regional health chief Hatem Cherif said authorities would build a new cemetery for migrants. "We bury dozens every day," he said.

Reporting by Tarek Amara; Writing by Angus McDowall, Editing by William Maclean

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Tunisia facing unprecedented migration crisis as bodies wash ashore - Reuters