Immigration Inundation: El Paso Struggling To Cope

The immigration situation on the southern border is growing more dire by the day.  The Dallas News reports from El Paso:

“This border community is struggling to cope with hundreds of migrant families released onto the streets by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, even as shelters on both sides of the border say they are becoming increasingly overwhelmed.

“Since Sunday, hundreds of migrants, mostly asylum seekers from Central America, have been left at a local bus station, most penniless, and area shelters say the numbers are expected to double, if not triple, by the end of the week. Annunciation House, a migrant shelter in El Paso, in recent months has been coping with an influx of migrants, but the latest groups were dropped off without notice on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  By Wednesday evening, an additional 522 migrants were released, said Ruben Garcia, director of Annunciation House.”

The situation across the border in Juarez, Mexico is much the same as the largest shelter there has announced it will no longer accept migrants because there is no room.

Add to this the deaths of two children in the custody of the U.S. government.  Homeland Security has asked for help.  From Business Insider:

“The Department of Homeland Security has asked the US Coast Guard, the Department of Defense, and the Centers for Disease Control to help provide healthcare to migrant children in its custody after an 8-year-old boy died on Monday.

“Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said in a statement Wednesday afternoon that she has requested the CDC “investigate the uptick in sick children crossing our borders,” the Coast Guard review the current medical programs migrants receive, and that the Pentagon provide medical support staff.

“Nielsen said she’s also visiting the border this week to see first-hand what the Border Patrol stations and medical screenings look like.”