County Administrator Jan Lescher said that despite the drop, the county continued to admit up to 9,500 immigrants a week.

Without more money, Lesher says, migrants are imminently being released onto the streets. She spoke to AZPM at a press conference at the Port of Lukeville late last week.

“We've been very clear that we're providing a federal function, and if we're going to do that, we need federal funding to continue doing that,” she said. “Due to changes in how they raise money and how much money they raise, we believe that the funds allocated to us for next year will be depleted by the end of February.”

Department of Homeland Security Secretary Blas Nuñez Nieto announced that DHS will provide Congress with billions of dollars in emergency additional funding that will provide both border security funding and grants to support NGOs providing immigration services in border areas. He said he requested.

“Funding alone probably won't be enough,” he says. “We really need Congress to step up and update our broken immigration system, which has been untouched since the 1990s.”

Even though negotiations over border funding are stalled in Congress, Nuñez Nieto is hopeful that bipartisan debate in the Senate and stronger action by Mexico will help better manage the flow of migrants. said.