OCEANSIDE – A coalition of nonprofit organizations, city leaders and other community volunteers are providing aid to hundreds of migrants dropped off downtown over the past week by Border Patrol agents.
According to County Supervisor Jim Desmond, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection has dropped off as many as 2,300 migrants at transit centers throughout San Diego County. At least 200 migrants were dropped off at Oceanside Transit Center as of Sept. 18.
Other drop-off locations include transit stations in San Ysidro, El Cajon and Otay Mesa West.
According to the federal law enforcement agency, the reason for the drop-offs is an attempt to clear a space between two U.S.-Mexico border fences where more than 700 migrants, asylum-seekers and refugees had been camping.
Several drop-offs have occurred in Oceanside since Sept. 13, and more are anticipated. These drop-offs can occur at any time, day and night.
Customs has been alerting City Manager Jonathan Borrego’s office of impending drops anywhere from 30 minutes to a couple of hours before they happen. The city is working alongside the North County Rapid Response Network, a network of organizations that provide assistance to asylum seekers, to help migrants who are being dropped off at the transit center.
According to Interfaith Community Services CEO and President Greg Anglea, border patrol is also alerting the nonprofit, which in turn is leading other volunteers and organizations to step in to help.
“Interfaith Community Services has led a coalition of community-based organizations, volunteers, and the city of Oceanside to provide humanitarian aid and assistance to asylum-seeking migrants being released by the federal government on the streets of Oceanside,” Anglea said via email.
According to Anglea, the coalition has served 177 individuals and counting, providing them safety, water, food, clothing, language support to identify plans to communicate with and travel to their sponsor families, transportation assistance, shelter and housing, medical support and reunification for migrant families who have been separated.
“In addition to the challenges migrants face being dropped off without support in a community they have no knowledge of, we are encountering a number of migrants who have been separated from their families,” Anglea said. “Interfaith is helping to reconnect those separated spouses, parents and children so reunited families can travel together to their sponsor family.”
Councilmember Eric Joyce, who also volunteered his time to help the stranded migrants over the weekend, said the vast majority are trying to get to their sponsor family members in other states as far as New York. He noted the migrants speak a variety of languages, including Spanish, French, Portuguese and Turkish.
“Most of the support has been helping them connect with their sponsors and helping them to secure travel there,” Joyce told The Coast News. “There has been a need to shelter some individuals with different aid organizations too.”
According to Anglea, Interfaith does not have additional shelter bed capacity and is currently seeking local faith communities and sponsor families who can provide shelter, transport and additional care.
Volunteers have been on standby to drive migrants back down to the San Diego International Airport to catch flights to their sponsor families.
According to Interfaith, one of these drivers was Max Disposti, executive director of the North County LGBTQ Resource Center, who made a pit stop by the ocean for the migrants to enjoy the view. Another driver, Logan Goverman, marketing and advocacy strategist with Interfaith, took a group of migrants to In-N-Out for their first meal in the states.
“There was a significant communication barrier, but I wanted to make them feel comfortable,” Goverman said in a Facebook post. “I decided to hand them my phone and asked them to play their favorite music.”
Though many community members have stepped up to help, Joyce said some individuals have shown up to drop-offs and attempted to intimidate both migrants and the volunteers helping them.
Anglea said more volunteers are needed to help with onsite assessment and triage, transportation, shelter and travel coordination. Food, water, clothing, cell phone chargers, gift cards and monetary donations are also needed to help in the response and to help pay for the migrants to travel to their families.
Joyce praised the volunteers helping migrants and called on government officials to provide more resources.
“The federal, state and county agencies need to do a better job of providing resources to support a transition for these folks that upholds their dignity,” Joyce wrote in a Facebook post.
Last week, Desmond said the federal government was failing to protect San Diego County residents and needed to provide adequate resources to manage migrants entering the area. Desmond said drop-offs will worsen the region’s existing homeless crisis.
Rep. Mike Levin (D-San Juan Capistrano) said he voiced his concerns about the lack of resources provided to the community to the White House and urged Congress to act on the country’s broken immigration system.
