Thousands of migrants cross illegally into the United States through the southern border, seeking refuge and asylum. But, after they’re processed by border patrol, the U.S. government relies on non-governmental organizations, or NGOs, to take on the job of housing, feeding, and transporting the migrants — a humanitarian crisis that seems to have no end in sight.
“I don't think there was any expectation that it would scale up to the level that it has,” said Teresa Cavendish, Chief Operating Officer at the Catholic Community Services of Southern Arizona, an NGO that has been helping care for the needs of migrants who cross the border.
Casa Alitas, an agency associated with the Catholic Community Services of Southern Arizona, started helping migrants and refugees in 2014 when border patrol was dropping off asylum seekers at Greyhound bus stations with nowhere to go. In that first year, the organization helped just under 2,000 migrants.
“In 2023, we served almost 238,000 compared to that first year,” Elena Dwyre, CEO at the Catholic Community Services of Southern Arizona told ABC15. “So, you know, we are making sure that individuals are treated not only with the dignity and respect that they need, but we need to keep them safe. They come to us without any clothing... without food, without medicine, so we have partnered with the community to make sure that they receive the care that they need, so they can safely go to their families and friends across the country.”
The Department of Homeland Security has depended on NGOs to fill the void in the immigration system process for years.
“NGOs have played a role along on both sides of the border in the US... side and the Mexican side for some period of time. I think what you've seen over the last three years, is they've taken that to a different level,” Chad Wolf, former Acting Secretary of Homeland Security, told ABC15.
Casa Alitas started out self-funded, operating through donations and volunteers, but it couldn’t keep up with the influx of migrants coming across the border without additional funding.
“We were doing it all on our own, really, the community within Tucson was doing it all on their own,” Cavendish said. “It was volunteers, it was small donations and then the need and the volume of folks coming through grew. It wasn't until 2019 when there actually was government funding federal funding that was available to assist with this.”
Millions of dollars pour through FEMA and into NGOs across the country as they take on the burden left behind by the federal government.
“They're in the work of processing people, making sure that they have their documents that allow them to remain within the US legally, and then sending them on their way,” Cavendish said. “They didn't want that to just be opening the back door of a border patrol station and having folks go. It has a negative impact on the community.”
Critics argue that taxpayer money shouldn’t be used to house migrants crossing the border illegally, but without NGOs, migrants would be left on the street with no place to go — a problem created by the federal government.
“It's not the NGOs fault, it’s not even the illegal migrants' fault,” Charles Marino, former DHS advisor under former President Barack Obama, said. “Remember the initial saying from the Secretary of Homeland Security in the first week of the administration, ‘we're not saying don't come, we're just asking you not to come now.’”
Marino said the problem stems from immigration policy, or lack thereof, that has caused a record number of illegal crossings and created a burden on the system.
“The border has never been an easy thing for any administration,” Merino said. “This administration is an outlier, in the sense that from day one, they've never prioritized securing the border and enforcing the laws.”
Wolf said this created “big business” for NGOs.
“They've made a multi-million-dollar business out of this right and sheltering these migrants, transporting the migrants,” Wolf said. “It’s a big business for these folks. So in some sense, and it's not every NGO, but some of these NGOs don't want to see the crisis go away, because they're making quite a bit of money on it.”
Casa Alitas argues it costs the taxpayer less money, as opposed to the ICE or DHS detaining migrants.
“I think what's interesting is we recently just did a reassessment on the costs involved in working with every individual, and it is a little over $55 a person to receive services from Casa Alitas,” Cavendish said. “We’re not in the business of making a profit on this. We ran the same analysis on what it costs DHS, for example, to keep people in detention to do their own transportation with folks. And the cost was well over $300 a person. So, from a budgeting standpoint, you can tell it is it is less expensive for an NGO.”
But Congress has called for more oversight after a report from the DHS Office of the Inspector General last year found some of the $110 million from the American Rescue Plan allocated to FEMA for NGOs were misspent — including failure to provide proper receipts and documentation.
“This whole situation is unmanageable for everybody that's involved in it, including the NGOs, whether it's purposeful or not. What you're seeing is an overwhelming number of migrants, an overwhelming amount of tax dollars being thrown at the problem, to the NGOs specifically and what we're going to find is that there's no consistency in how all of this money is being managed,” Merino said. “And like every large program, you're going to find waste, fraud and abuse, which is why the inspector general comes in and now takes an interest in this.”
In the meantime, it seems like NGOs are the only ones keeping the humanitarian crisis at the border from getting worse — but even that is proving to not be enough. Despite the funding, Casa Alitas said they’re struggling to keep up with the amount of migrants crossing the border and expect to start doing street releases in the summer.
“These would not be straight releases just within the Tucson community, but the entire Tucson sector of DHS services,” Cavendish said.
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