El Paso ends emergency declaration as migrant arrivals drop at US-Mexico border under Trump

Yahoo

01-04-2025

The city of El Paso quietly ended its state of emergency declaration that was put in place at the height of the mass arrival of migrants to the Borderland.
The emergency ordinance was last approved on Jan. 7, 2025. It was not included on the February agenda.
The decision not to renew the order was made because the city had seen a massive decline in migrants arriving at the border.
"We have not had the need to renew it," City Rep. Chris Canales of District 8 said. "There is currently no more emergency ordinance."
The decision to end the emergency ordinance came as the two Federal Emergency Management Agency grant and reimbursement programs — the Emergency Food and Shelter Program and the Shelter and Services Program — were ending or faced changes.
"Our federal funding expired at the end of December," City Rep. Josh Acevedo of District 2 said. "It got transferred to the Shelter and Services Program."
The measure activated the El Paso city-county Office of Emergency Management, allowed them to staff migrant shelters and shift finances to provide humanitarian relief services. It paved the way for the city to "to create and staff a Welcome Center to assist with transportation assistance, providing long-distance charter services and over 39,000 meals."
The emergency declaration permitted City Hall to access the funds made available through the federal reimbursement programs. The city utilized the ordinance and SSP funding through most of January, said Deputy City Manager Mario D'Agostino, ahead of the Donald Trump presidential inauguration.
"The reason we had that in place was so we can do things outside of our normal operations," he explained. "We had to use hotel rooms in early January because NGOs didn't have the capacity to house (the arriving migrants.)"
However, Trump's inauguration on Jan. 20 marked the end of the need for the emergency ordinance. Since June, El Paso has experienced a sharp decline in arrivals. The Trump administration ultimately eliminated the CBP One application used by migrants to access asylum interviews.
The move, by executive order, essentially halted migrants' access to apply for asylum as allowed by U.S. immigration law.
"The numbers are just astronomically different," D'Agostino said. "We are not seeing any releases. Once the Trump administration took place, it really dropped off."
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The emergency ordinance was first signed by Mayor Oscar Leeser on Dec. 17, 2022, as El Paso saw the historic arrival of migrants at the border. This led to a humanitarian crisis as people were left on the streets in freezing temperatures, without travel plans to reach sponsors and family members.
Leeser said before leaving office in January 2025 that it was something he "had to do."
Immediately, Gov. Greg Abbott deployed Operation Lone Star forces to the El Paso-Juárez border.
The Texas National Guard unspooled miles of razor-wire on the north bank of the Rio Grande and started round-the-clock patrols. Texas Department of Public Safety troopers began to patrol the border as well and carry out high-speed pursuits against suspected human smugglers, resulting in deaths and injuries.
Acevedo said at the time he met with Texas DPS to express the concerns of his constituents and see what could be done about the high-speed pursuits. But there was not a lot of information shared with him.
"There wasn't a lot of data," he said. "And still it isn't being shared."
El Paso County condemned the DPS high-speed pursuits, demanding that the state curb the dangerous pursuits.
The measure permitted the city to access FEMA grants and reimbursement programs to address the needs of migrants — including housing and transportation — who were released from Customs and Border Protection agents into the community. The city was able to purchase the former Morehead Middle School building in order to create an emergency shelter.
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The emergency ordinance required unanimous support from the City Council and had to be approved every 30 days.
U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-El Paso, was key to establishing the FEMA programs, including the Shelter and Services Program. The FEMA grant and reimbursement program guaranteed that the city did not have to use local tax dollars to respond to the humanitarian crisis.
The Trump administration is currently blocking the reimbursement of SSP funds. FEMA is demanding that recipients of the funds, including El Paso and El Paso County, provide the names of migrants who received services through the funds.
The number of migrants arriving in El Paso has continued to significantly declined in the first three months of 2025.
February saw a record decrease in the number of migrants encountered by the Border Patrol, with CBP reporting only 2,110 encounters that month in the El Paso sector. A year prior, there were 23,919 encounters in the sector in the same month.
The El Paso Sector extends from the El Paso county line west through New Mexico and 100 miles from the border.
City Hall and El Paso non-profit organizations have rollbacked services for migrants in response to the decreased number of arrivals. El Paso County shut down the Migrant Support Services Center in December 2024, in part, because of the decreased numbers and changes to the FEMA programs.
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Federal contractors along the border have begun laying off workers since Trump canceled contracts in his first months in office and as the number of migrants crossing has plummeted. Nearly 500 federal contractors involved in immigration-related services in El Paso have been laid off since February.
The decline in arrivals began in January 2024 as Mexico began a crackdown on immigration, blocking migrants in southern Mexico. The numbers continued to decrease after the Biden Administration barred accessing asylum between ports of entry in June 2024, pushing the use of the CBP One application to access asylum services.
It is unlikely El Paso will receive any support in the future if these trends reverse.
"It is pretty clear to us that the Trump administration is providing little to no funding for services for migrants," Canales said. "So I don't anticipate that in any time soon we'll be opening (the Morehead) facility for that use."
Jeff Abbott covers the border for the El Paso Times and can be reached at:[e-mail];@palabrasdeabajo on Twitter or @palabrasdeabajo.bsky.social on Bluesky.
This article originally appeared on El Paso Times: El Paso ends emergency declaration as migrant arrivals drop at border