SAN ANTONIO -- Buses full of migrants from Uvalde will be coming to San Antonio Wednesday.
- City and county approved funds
- Border Patrol said there will be an increase in migrants
- Migrants will be taken to San Antonio
The City of Uvalde and Uvalde County have approved to spend the money to get people to facilities better equipped to handle them.
Leaders said their city can't handle the increase in population.
“Our hands are tied. We’re just a little, itty bitty government,” said City of Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin Jr.
The City of Uvalde is taking swift action after getting a warning from Border Patrol that there will be an increase in migrants.
“The problem in Uvalde is not that we don’t want to be hospitable, [it] is that we don’t have the facilities to handle 25 to 50 people every day," said McLaughlin.
The city will move two buses full of 19 people each day out of Uvalde to San Antonio, which now allocates funds to nonprofits to provide resources.
RELATED | San Antonio City Council Approves Funding for Asylum Seekers
“None of these immigrants that are coming want to stay in Uvalde. They want to get to a bus station to move to somewhere to a larger city.” -- City of Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin Jr.
The solution was unanimously decided on by the city and county at an emergency meeting.
“It’s strictly to transport this particular specialized population of immigrants or migrants that are being released by U.S. Border Patrol in Uvalde to San Antonio,” said Sarah Hidalgo-Cook of the Southwest Area Regional Transit District.
The Southwest Area Regional Transit District is a state- and federal-operated bus service. They say this won't interrupt their regular rural routes.
“This is an immediate solution to the situation until we can actually sit down to try to fine some type of solution to this issue," said Hidalgo-Cook.
“I’ve done the best that I can do for them in Uvalde and that’s to try to get them to San Antonio where they can get to areas they need to go in and to family members throughout the United States,” said McLaughlin.
The City of Uvalde hopes to make a decision with input from other city mayors as well as state and federal officials. They have already reached out to the federal government for reimbursement.