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.”
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.”
However, residents are concerned that the drop in funding could result in thousands of illegal immigrants being released onto the Tucson streets. And with crime and homelessness already high, this would likely cripple the city.
Data released from the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) shows that in December, agents were involved in a record 87,330 encounters with illegal immigrants in Arizona’s Yuma and Tucson sectors, which are right on the U.S.-Mexico border.
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