East County leaders held a news conference at the El Cajon Transit Center Thursday, saying it is an anticipated drop-off location for hundreds of asylum-seekers if the U.S. Supreme Court lifts a Trump-era rule known as Title 42. The Biden administration wants that to happen just after Christmas.
San Diego County District 2 Supervisor Joel Anderson said the county would need help to handle the expected arrivals.
“There’s no resources here. When you look around, you see there's nothing around here at all that can help shelter, clothe, feed and give wraparound services, medical services to these asylum-seekers,” Anderson said about the El Cajon transit facility.
The supervisor told KPBS that he sent letters to President Joe Biden and Gov. Gavin Newsom, asking for more resources.
“District 2 has welcomed more asylum-seekers and refugees than anywhere else in California. And we have opened our arms to people who are coming, fleeing persecution. But what they're proposing now is just so outrageous,” Anderson said.
He said there was no clear plan from the state or federal government on how to deal with an influx of migrants.
Immigration advocate Pedro Rios said the lack of services was a genuine concern, but added that Title 42 is now being misused.
“We know that more recently elected officials have been using Title 42 less and less as a preventative measure for the pandemic, for COVID-19, and more for a preventative measure or stop measure for migration — and that shift is concerning,” Rios said.
Anderson said he worried that the lifting of Title 42 could worsen the region’s homelessness crisis.
He’s not the only local leader to express concern — San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria discussed the end of Title 42 with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas during his trip to Washington, D.C., earlier in December.
At the time, Gloria said he wanted to explain to Mayorkas "the need for greater communication and coordination between Homeland Security and local cities like ours. And also the need for more resources."
Advocate Robert Vivar, who works with migrants in Tijuana, has also voiced concern as he sees the migrant population grow there. "I'm very much in touch with some of our partners at the shelters ... and they're all over capacity,” he told KPBS this week. "Do our partners, folks like JFS [Jewish Family Service] and Catholic Charities, have the capacity to assist them? And not only the capacity but the funding also."
JFS runs the San Diego Rapid Response Network Migrant Shelter Services. In a statement earlier this week, it said it was still preparing for the lifting of Title 42.
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The legal tug-of-war with Title 42 continues. Days before the Trump-era immigration rule was set to expire, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts ordered a temporary hold on the policy.
