‘Keeping a hundred folks off the street is different than a thousand folks everyday. So I am sounding the alarm,’ says Tucson City Manager Michael Ortega.
Arizona’s city of Tucson may be only days away from a crisis as millions of dollars in federal funds, which had been used to finance programs to house and assist illegal immigrants, are set to expire on April 1, potentially leading to their release en masse in the streets of Arizona’s border communities.
Tucson City Manager Michael Ortega said that the loss of federal funding, which amounts to more than $1 million dollars a week, would be “catastrophic” for the city.
“Keeping a hundred folks off the street is different than a thousand folks everyday,” Mr. Ortega told 13 News. “So I am sounding the alarm.”
“It’s about a million dollars a week, and so, in a short period of time, that could be catastrophic for the city of Tucson and for the region,” he added.
Tucson Ward 3 Council Member Kevin Dahl told The Epoch Times that if the federal funding is allowed to expire, the city will face a tremendous strain on its resources.
“If it comes to pass, it could be a complete cluster,” Mr. Dahl said. “We are talking about thousands of people arriving without resources and in need of medical attention. Tucson is a compassionate, generous community, but we are facing a constricting budget.”
More than 1,000 illegal immigrants are processed by Border Patrol before being brought into the city daily. And without the influx of federal dollars, it could, in short time, overwhelm the city, according to Mr. Dahl.
“We’ve never seen the number of people coming in now that we are currently seeing,” Mr. Dahl said. “In the past, we were seeing ten people a day being dropped off and it didn’t really have too much of an impact. But now, we are talking about hundreds every day and there is simply no place in our budgets for this to continue.”
Mr. Dahl said that regardless of the outcome, the city will continue working with non-profit groups set up to assist illegal immigrants. Further, he proposed that Border Patrol could take illegal immigrants to Sky Harbor airport in nearby Phoenix, Arizona, which “is better equipped to deal with the situation.”
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