HARLINGEN — The city’s homeless shelter might be forced to move Central American migrants testing positive for the coronavirus into Harlingen’s community center if it can’t make room for them in its building.
Earlier this week, city commissioners agreed to use the community center on Madison Avenue as a backup shelter if Loaves and Fishes can’t handle the influx of migrants seeking asylum in the United States.
During the meeting, Bill Reagan, the agency’s executive director, told commissioners he might be forced to move COVID-positive migrants into the community center if his building can’t make room for them.
“My hope is that the people we would place into the community center would be people who test negative, although, you know, if there’s no place else to put the positive people, we might have to do that,” Reagan said during Wednesday’s meeting, adding Loaves and Fishes could house as many as 40 migrants a day.
Last month, Loaves and Fishes booked migrants testing positive for COVID-19 into hotel rooms to avoid contaminating staff, residents who come for free meals and the homeless staying in its shelter, Reagan said.
“I don’t foresee it,” Reagan said about the possibility of moving migrants testing positive for COVID-19 into the community center. “But a week ago we rented 20 hotel rooms for three nights. You know, that’s expensive. There’s probably a limit as to how many times we can do that.”
Separating COVID-positive migrants
During discussions, City Commissioner Richard Uribe questioned whether Reagan could safely separate migrants testing positive for the virus from others in the community center.
“If we do need to use the community center — that’s a pretty big room — I can foresee asking positive folks to be on one side of the building and negative on the other,” Reagan said. “I’m not sure that’s great mitigation but I really hope we’re able to only send people who are negative to the community center.”
On Feb. 18, the U.S. Border Patrol released 49 migrants to Loaves and Fishes, which found eight testing positive for the virus, Reagan said at the time, adding his staff took the infected migrants to hotel rooms.
The next day, Border Patrol agents released 26 migrants to Loaves and Fishes at about 5 p.m., leaving the shelter’s staff without time to test them for the virus, he said, adding workers booked the group into about 20 hotel rooms.
“In the first group we received, 25 percent tested positive, so if we get 100 people a day — 25 percent, I think we can put them in a hotel room,” he told commissioners during Wednesday’s meeting.
COVID-19 testing ‘almost useless’
So far, a grant has funded COVID-19 testing Reagan described as “almost useless.”
“Those folks who test negative may have recently been exposed,” he told commissioners. “The testing is really almost useless because these folks have been in detention together, they’ve been in close quarters under difficult circumstances, sometimes for weeks. Sometimes they’re brought together on the bus.”
Reagan noted the city doesn’t have authority to require people be held for the federally recommended 12-day quarantine period.
“We can’t quarantine them even though they test positive,” he said.
Instead, family members help migrants catch buses or planes as they make their way into the United States to await immigration court hearings on their asylum claims.
“They’re going to leave the next day,” Reagan said. “They’re going to get on a bus or the airplane and they’re gone.”
‘Orderly transition’
Mayor Chris Boswell said Loaves and Fishes is trying to help migrants through an “orderly transition” as they make their way into the United States.
“The important thing to remember here is that these families or individuals are being released into the community by the Border Patrol, and whether we want them to do that or we don’t want them to do that, they’re doing it, and Loaves and Fishes is, for our community, undertaking the burden of trying to assist with the orderly transition as they move from Point A to Point B,” Boswell said.
Last month, city commissioners set aside $50,000 to help Loaves and Fishes feed, shelter and transport migrants while giving City Manager Dan Serna authority to give the agency an additional $25,000 through the end of the year.
Call for Border Patrol testing
Like Reagan, some city officials believe the Border Patrol should test migrants for COVID-19 before dropping them off at bus stations.
“They said that they wouldn’t be testing,” Reagan said Thursday, about a week after talking with Border Patrol officials.
Josh Ramirez, the city’s public heath director, said federal authorities are required to notify city, county and state officials of their release of detainees infected with communicable diseases such as COVID-19.
“If a federal agency is going to release a detainee into a community knowing the person can pose a public health threat, they should notify all authorities — state, county and city,” he said Thursday.
Central American influx
In the last two weeks, the Border Patrol has released about 1,825 Central American migrants at the Brownsville bus station, where the city’s emergency management officials have found about 141 have tested positive for the coronavirus, Felipe Romero, the city’s spokesman, said Tuesday, adding the Texas Division of Emergency Management is funding the cost of rapid-test kits.
From there, migrants’ family members help them catch buses or planes into the United States.
Migrants leaving Matamoros camp
Meanwhile, thousands of Central American migrants have been waiting in a Matamoros camp after former President Donald Trump refused to allow them entry into the United States about two years ago.
Now, the U.S. government is allowing 100 migrants a day to cross the border, Romero said.
Since Feb. 25, about 327 migrants have entered the United States, he said Tuesday.
In Matamoros, a non-profit group is testing the migrants for COVID-19 before they’re allowed to the cross the border, he said.
PREVIOUS COVERAGE:
Harlingen begins sheltering Central American migrants; shelter finds 8 positive for COVID-19
