They included Yuma Mayor Douglas Nichols, Sierra Vista Mayor Claire McCullah II, and Pima County Deputy County Administrator and Chief Medical Officer Francisco Garcia.

“150,000 asylum seekers processed in Pima County from 2019 to date — yes, this is a crisis,” Pima County’s Garcia said at the hearing. “Even with federal support, we are using up resources that should be used for other purposes.”

Senator Kirsten Cinema (Arizona) and other members of the Senate Committee held hearings in Washington, DC.

Topics discussed included an increase in migrants requiring services in local communities, the impact of increased human smuggling and rapid tracing, and the possible future impact of the end of Public Health Policy Title 42. was

Title 42 allows the U.S. government to expel some immigrants from the country immediately. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention plans to begin taking orders in March 2020 as a pandemic measure and end May 11.

Immigrants have been deported more than 2.8 million times since Title 42 came into force. Many observers are concerned that the number of illegal immigrants entering the country will increase and could get out of hand when the policy ends. It claims to overturn national and international asylum laws that give refugees the right to seek asylum.

Pima County has spent more than $23 million on immigration services since the summer of 2019, which is covered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Emergency Food and Shelter Program.

A recent federal spending bill included approximately $800 million to apply the FEMA program to cities and jurisdictions nationwide that provide immigration services. Pima County received his April and He June grants and will continue to seek funding.

The more than $1 billion in funding Congress has allocated to immigration services will go to “nonprofits and organizations that provide food, shelter, and other services to immigrants to prevent the immigration crisis from becoming a homeless crisis.” “It is intended to help reduce the financial burden on the community,” Cinema said at the hearing.

By 2022, the average number of migrants transiting Pima County and using services each day ranged from 224 to 770. Border Patrol estimates that when Title 42 ends, the county could take up to 1,200 to 1,500 people per day, overwhelming existing local capacity. Without significant federal support, according to his April 4 memo from his county administrator Jan Lesher.

“The net effect of our efforts was to mask the crisis,” Garcia said at the hearing. “Few people in Tucson, Pima County, or Arizona know that federal agencies send hundreds of people to local county-supported shelters every day. We do not want and should not be in the business of protecting and caring for asylum-seekers, and that should be the function of the federal government.”

Garcia said the current funding strategy from FEMA does not allow the county to plan for more than three months at a time. If Congress enacts comprehensive immigration reform or the federal government is not in charge of immigration services currently handled by local communities, counties need not only more reliable refunds, but longer-lasting funding. There is

Yuma Mayor Nichols said the federal government should bring more resources to the border ahead of the end of Title 42, including ambulances, containers of food and supplies, medical supplies, medical professionals, mobile shelters and buses. And like Garcia, he said he should be in charge of much of the immigration service.

“I believe shelter work needs to be taken over by actual FEMA work and the National Guard,” said Nicholls. “Fundraising is important, but organizations have limitations and need to be aware of them.

He also told the Commission about undocumented immigration and the reimplementation of Operation Streamline, a controversial practice previously used by federal courts to expedite the movement of migrants through deportation proceedings. He said he wanted to strengthen diplomacy between the two countries.

In recent years, Yuma has seen a large influx of immigrants. The Yuma Sector of the Border Patrol has arrested immigrants at the border between 300 and 1,000 times a month in fiscal 2020 and between 21,000 and 31,000 a month in 2022. Those numbers have dropped to an average of about 11,000 per month since January.

When numbers peaked in 2021, Nichols declared a local emergency. In December 2022, with similar turnouts, the cities of San Luis and Somerton in Yuma County have also declared states of emergency, he said.

“I want to emphasize that the immigration crisis is hurting Yuma far beyond the public eye,” he told the commission.

He said Yuma’s agriculture is affected by immigrants entering the farmlands. Yuma’s economic growth has been undermined by concerns from potential investors about changing border conditions. Regional medical centers also experienced a dramatic increase in immigrant patient access to emergency, intensive care, and obstetric care, costing $26 million.

Sierra Vista Mayor Mucker told the commission that the biggest border-related problem facing Sierra Vista is the endangerment of roads from human smuggling and high-speed pursuit.

Cross-border organizations often employ young U.S. citizens to pick up illegal immigrants near the border and take them to cities such as Tucson and Phoenix. Recruiters tell them not to stop for police but to drive aggressively and recklessly if police are behind, officials say.

The Sierra Vista Police Department responded to 19 vehicle chases in the city in 2020 and 38 in 2022, McCaa said. Authorities often refer to vehicles suspected of smuggling people as cargo vehicles.

“These wagon drivers, often teenagers and young adults, are encouraged to drive recklessly through our towns to discourage pursuit,” McCaa said. This created a very dangerous situation.”

In one incident, a road car driver was speeding through an elementary school area and collided with a bicycle.

Police stations have seen an increase in felony cases from 343 in 2020 to 588 in 2022, he said.

“This increase is not due to violent crime, which may frighten plague communities near the border,” he said. With limited manpower, it will tie up not only police department time, but a significant amount of time for all law enforcement agencies in our area.”

Nicholls agreed that the problem wasn’t that migrants coming through the community were causing violent crime, but that they didn’t have the resources to get where they needed to be.

Deputy County Administrator Garcia says Pima County has largely avoided the release of dozens of people onto the streets in Tucson four times.

“The greatest burden is the large and constant flow and volume of asylum seekers, and that is the biggest challenge for us, city and county staff, humanitarian staff and volunteers,” Garcia said. It is relentless and exhausting, and only comprehensive immigration reform will solve it.”