A U.S. delegation from the Biden administration is meeting with Mexican officials over the surge of migrants at the Texas-Mexico border. NBC 5’s Phil Prazan talked to some service providers in North Texas who have a front row seat to the humanitarian crisis.
NBC News reports nearly 12,000 people a day were apprehended at the United States Southern border by immigration officials last week.
That helped spark a high-level meeting this week between Mexican President Lopez Obrador, U.S. Secretary of State Blinken, and Secretary of Homeland Security Mayorkas.
In Dallas, a key immigration service provider hopes the talks will lead to more resources for shelters to house the people already in the United States.
Three times a week, a busload of new immigrants to America arrives at Oak Law United Methodist Church. After the people clear a background check and are released from detention centers in South Texas, they often arrive in Dallas with no clear path on where to go.
Get top local stories in DFW delivered to you every morning. >Sign up for NBC DFW's News Headlines newsletter.
Staff and volunteers at the church help them travel to family members or sponsors across the country as they await their immigration court dates. Sometimes, the court dates maybe two weeks to five years away.
“We are a church that is trying ease the process from the detention center to their home with their family, wherever that is. We want to welcome them and make that transition easy," said Associate Pastor Isabel Marquez.
Marques told NBC 5 that a year ago, they saw many people from Haiti, Russia, and Turkey.
Local
The latest news from around North Texas.
“It changed suddenly from one week to another, and we started receiving people from Latin America only. Majority from Venezuela from political issues there, from poverty, and from Cuba," said Marquez.
Venezuelans and Cubans make up part of a large caravan now walking through Southern Mexico. They joined others from Central America, and NBC News reports the caravan has grown from 6,000 people to an estimated 8,000 people in the past few days, heading North to the United States.
U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken arrived in Mexico for a high-level meeting with Mexican officials and the President, hoping to slow the number of people coming into Texas.
“What secretaries Blinken and Mayorkas will be pushing for is enforcement, enforcement, enforcement," said former Acting Secretary of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, John Sandweg, to NBC News.
Marquez from Oak Lawn United Methodists says they also need more resources for shelters stateside because many immigrants arrive in Dallas with the shelter as their sponsor address.
“The shelters are full. We need to face that. We hear it all over the news. They are over capacity. So, there’s no way to keep giving those addresses," said Marquez.
She urges immigration officials to make sure the immigrants have the correct family or sponsor address before putting them on the bus north because, many times, they are unsure when they arrive.
“We love them in this country. We know that this country is built by immigrants. We know that this country is welcoming and welcomes all the people but we want to do this in a very safe way, for all of us," said Marquez.
