(NewsNation) — Border Patrol agents are expecting the crisis at the southern border to get even worse as federal funds to help house migrants will come to an end March 31, with no plan on how to mitigate the fallout.
Thousands of newly released migrants could flood the streets of the already packed Tucson Sector at the end of March, according to new documents obtained by NewsNation’s Ali Bradley.
That’s when the money runs out. Millions in funding that have kept nongovernmental organizations in the area helping migrants will all dry up.
Sheriff Mark J. Dannels, who oversees Cochise County, Arizona, just east of Tuscon and bordering Mexico, weighed in on “Elizabeth Vargas Reports,” saying, “It has been a slippery slope for the last three years on the Southwest border.”
Lack of funding means thousands could be on the streets with no food, no water and nowhere to go as the centers will be forced to shut down.
Border Patrol officers have been warning for months that a cut to funding will have disastrous consequences.
“As this money dries up, that leaves communities another challenge, a financial burden but also a survival challenge,” Dannels said. “These migrants trying to live will have no means. So survival kicks in, which is a public safety humanitarian issue.”
Local leaders told NewsNation that they’re between a rock and a hard place: They want to help migrants who have been processed and released by Border Patrol because they have no intention of staying in these border communities, and they’re working to get closer to the final destination.
“That equates to about 40,000 migrants dropped off in my county that we have to, as local communities with limited resources and funding, figure out what to do next,” Dannels said.