SAN ANTONIO, Texas — As election day nears, a non-profit migrant shelter in San Antonio saw the number of housed migrants rise since May. As Texas border border cities begin to experience a rise in crossings, the San Antonio Migrant Resource Center has housed nearly 12,500 migrants since October 1, 2024.
The center is a cooperative endeavor between the City of San Antonio and several non-profit organizations, including Catholic Charities. Since opening in 2022, it has assisted nearly half a million migrants in finding transportation out of the city.
Breitbart Texas visited the facility on Wednesday and observed several buses from the border region dropping off migrants at the heavily secured facility. The city provides police officers to keep out unauthorized visitors and to keep the peace at the facility.
Migrants moved about outside the facility as commuters traveled on the busy roadways of Mission City. Migrants, including family units and single adults, stood on the street corners or walked from the shelter to local businesses wearing clothing provided by Customs and Border Protection contractors at migrant processing facilities along the border.
One family from Venezuela spoke to Breitbart Texas and said they had been treated well since being released by the Border Patrol in Eagle Pass earlier this month. Maria and Trinidad walked the streets with their children, ages nine and 12. Trinidad says he ultimately hopes to travel to New York but has no funds or family members to assist him in his travels. He says sometimes families wait longer for travel money from the shelter since it’s more expensive to fly out with an entire family than a single person.
“I think we are going to be leaving here soon. It’s been more than a week, and we are tired of being here, but we know we have to wait our turn,” he told Breitbart Texas in Spanish. Trinidad’s wife says she is anxious to get up to New York City and find work as a maid or in the restaurant industry.
“I’ll work anywhere, we have no relatives there and it’s important that we find work fast. Until then, we will just keep up our faith that something happens,” she added.
Venezuelans top the list of the ten most sheltered nationalities being served since the shelter opened in July 2022. Since then, more than 60,000 Venezuelan nationals have been sheltered at the facility. According to the City of San Antonio, Nicaraguans followed in second place, with more than 26,000 sheltered at the facility. Cubans, Hondurans, Haitians, and Colombians round out the top six nationalities, with a combined total of 78,393 being served at the facility since opening day. The shelter has served migrants from across the globe, including some considered by the FBI and DHS to be Special Interest Aliens.
The facility was slated to run out of federal funding in March 2024 but received a reprieve after President Joe Biden signed a $1.2 trillion funding package passed by Congress. The FEMA Shelter and Program (SSP) was provided $650 million to reimburse non-government migrant shelters like San Antonio’s Migrant Resource Center for costs related to services for non-citizens.
Nearly $17 million in FEMA SSP funding was allocated to the City of San Antonio and other local non-profit organizations to assist in operating the city’s Migrant Resource Center.
As reported by Breitbart Texas, migrant crossings, including large single groups, Special Interest Aliens, and unaccompanied migrant children, have been on the rise in recent weeks in Eagle Pass, Texas, more than 150 miles west of San Antonio. Migrants released in Eagle Pass by the Border Patrol after being processed for asylum travel to the San Antonio Migrant Resource Center, where air travel to other parts of the United States is coordinated.
Randy Clark is a 32-year veteran of the United States Border Patrol. Prior to his retirement, he served as the Division Chief for Law Enforcement Operations, directing operations for nine Border Patrol Stations within the Del Rio, Texas, Sector. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) @RandyClarkBBTX.
