El Paso is ready to welcome small groups of asylum-seekers returning from Mexico beginning on Friday into a facility where COVID-19 protocols will be enforced and months of planning for their arrival will coalesce. Casa del Refugiado (House of the Refugee) will receive 25 prospective refugees per day through March 10, when the number will double to 50 and then triple to 75 at the end of that month, said Ruben Garcia, executive director of Annunciation House, the umbrella organization for a series of migrant shelters in El Paso. “Individuals will arrive, they will be able to sleep (and eat). That is very important, very crucial to all of these individuals who have been in Mexico close to two years in very challenging conditions,” Garcia said. “We will assist them to make calls to family members they have all over the country. Those individuals will purchase bus or plane tickets for them, and they will be on their way.” Garcia expects the prospective refugees to stay in El Paso between 24 and 96 hours. “Ninety-nine percent of them will be leaving El Paso in very short order,” he said on Thursday, as he gave the news media a tour of Casa del Refugiado. The shelter has been inspected by infectious disease specialists and will require guests and employees to wear face masks. Families will be given hygiene packs that include hand-sanitizers and a quarantine area is ready in case of an unexpected COVID-19 infection, Garcia said. Those who are eligible to return will be given parole at a U.S. port of entry and allowed to continue their cases in the United States. They will be given a form to transfer their cases from El Paso to their destination – Houston, Los Angeles, New York, etc. Garcia said 8,600 prospective refugees have registered so far in the UN page and that, as of Thursday, 350 had passed all requirements for re-entry, save for the same-day or 24-hour negative COVID-19 test, which the UN would be facilitating. If they fail the test, they’ll be placed in quarantine in Mexico until they’re eligible to retest. El Paso non-profits, including Annunciation House, found themselves overrun in late 2018 and early 2019 by the sheer number of asylum-seekers released from DHS custody back in the day when immigration enforcement agencies were stopping hundreds, sometimes thousands of people per day in many sectors. That won’t happen this time around, Garcia and Lopez said, because the nonprofits have been preparing for the return of asylum-seekers since Joe Biden won the Nov. 3 election – and also because communication is good between advocates, local and federal officials...MORE
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