AUSTIN, Texas — A surge of migrants to the U.S.-Mexico border is slowly making their way north. By the bus load, migrants from Central America and other parts of the world are transitioning at a makeshift resource center in downtown San Antonio.
- Houses about 200 migrants on any given day
- Most stay for two days
- So far they've helped transition 21,000 asylum seekers
The Migrant Resource Center in Downtown San Antonio houses about 200 migrants on any given day. They're given three meals a day, medical attention if they need it, and they're helped to decipher their travel plans once they leave. According to the city's Health and Human Services Department, this is the first time a facility like this has been used to house migrants in this way.
With the help of a translator, we learned Berlande Jean Louis is traveling from her home country of Haiti with her husband and daughter. She has another baby on the way.
Her family has been traveling since early March. She, like the more than 150 other migrants at the resource center, was detained and processed at the border before making her way to San Antonio by bus.
While arriving to San Antonio is a milestone, this is not the end of the road. She and her family are going to Florida.
"She said she's happy here in the United States, she just got here, but she's very happy. She knows wherever God is that even when she arrives in Florida and along the way, she knows she'll be taken care of and happy in the United States," a DHS employee translated on behalf of Jean Louis.
Since March, Melody Woosley with the San Antonio Department of Human Services has helped transition 21,000 asylum seekers. She says border patrol agents are overwhelmed by the surge of migrants.
"So, they're moving on to other communities for assistance," said Woosley.
Cameras are not allowed in the facility, but after a tour we learned there is food, rest and play stations, and medical professionals inside. It's an effort Woosley calls a "compassionate layover."
"The goal is to help them with travel assistance, provide basic needs like meals, shelter, diapers for children," said Woosley.
Most cycle through this facility quickly, but as one bus load leaves, another one arrives.
The majority of the migrants are coming from places like Honduras, Haiti, and some, even as far as Africa. Most of the migrants at the resource center in Downtown San Antonio stay for about two days while they arrange travel plans with the help of Health and Human Services workers, or volunteers.