The fire department in Eagle Pass, Texas, has been burning through $21,000 a day – more than $2.2 million since mid-September – as it deals with emergencies stemming from an influx of migrants crossing the southern border, according to an official in the beleaguered border town.
Almost every hour, first responders from the city’s fire department are dispatched to the Rio Grande or US Customs and Border Protection holding facilities to deal with immigration-related emergencies, according to Eagle Pass Fire Chief Manuel Mello.
“There’s not a day that goes by where we don’t go to the riverfront to transport patients, and the city costs that,” Mello told Fox News.
Since mid-September, the Eagle Pass Fire Department has averaged about 45 emergency medical services calls a day — typically 30 of them related to immigrants — with each call running the department $700, according to the fire chief.
“We receive all kinds of calls from minor cuts and bruises to hypothermia to heart attacks to broken bones to childbirth,” he told the outlet. “So we transport all kinds of patients, and they’re all immigrants.”
The fire department has been dispatching about 45 EMS calls a day, with 30 of them typically related to immigrants, since mid-September. Reuters
The Eagle Pass fire department’s budget is just under $6.3 million in fiscal year 2023, which ends Sept. 30, according to city records.
Republican US Representative Tony Gonzalez, whose district covers Eagle Pass – which is less than a mile from the Mexican border – previously said the federal government has yet to reimburse the city for staggering costs linked to the migrant crisis.
“The City of Eagle Pass has received zero federal dollars in reimbursement,” Gonzalez told San Antonio-based station KENS5.
The Eagle Pass, Texas, Fire Department spends $21,000 per day on immigrant-related emergency calls. Getty Images
The southern border of the United States has been besieged by immigrants, with CBP agents finding a record-breaking 276,000 individuals trying to cross illegally from Mexico in December, according to preliminary data obtained by Fox News — which does not include the last three. day of the month.
Earlier this month, more than 12,000 migrants crossed the border in one day, with illegal crossings exceeding 10,000 in some days. ‘
The migrant crackdown in December became so out of control that CBP ordered the international rail crossing from Eagle Pass and El Paso with Mexico to be temporarily closed “to divert personnel to assist the US Border Patrol by taking migrants into custody,” the agency said.
Earlier this week, Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador to address the ongoing flow of migrants at the border.
US Representative Tony Gonzalez said the federal government has yet to reimburse Eagle Pass for costs associated with the migrant crisis. AP
Neither side announced any specific solutions to the issue, but claimed they were committed to dealing with the flooding.
“As we made clear in Mexico City today, we are committed to working with Mexico to address our shared challenges, including managing unprecedented irregular migration in the region, reopening key gateways and combating illicit fentanyl and other synthetic drugs ,” said Blinken. after the meeting.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
