Many of the quarantined migrants are Haitians who massed under the Del Rio bridge earlier this month.
The City of El Paso, Texas is currently quarantining 285 migrants who have tested positive for COVID-19 or have been exposed to COVID-19-positive family members, one week after federal authorities emptied the makeshift migrant camp under the international bridge in Del Rio, where thousands of Haitian migrants had amassed after illegally crossing the border.
“From the onset of the pandemic, the City has operated a non-congregate isolation and quarantine program for vulnerable populations to include homeless and migrants that are COVID positive,” said City of El Paso Strategic Communications Director Laura Cruz-Acosta in a statement to National Review.
“We are currently providing quarantine and isolation at two hotels for 285 migrants which include Haitians recently released to our local NGO by immigration officials,” she said. “Positive cases and exposed family members remain together in a hotel room for 10 days.”
She said that the city provides the migrants with three meals daily and volunteers offer daily check-ins, basic necessities and hygiene items.
“Due to the high numbers, medical teams are being deployed for daily health checks,” she added.
Deven Bhakta, a front desk attendant at the SuperLodge Motel in El Paso, said more than 100 migrants are currently staying at the motel. He said the residents are families, including couples with children and single mothers.
Bhakta said that while the motel had opened its rooms to migrants “a while ago,” that the number of migrants staying at the motel had begun to slow until the manager decided to give the entire motel over to migrants three weeks ago after business was slow.
He confirmed that the migrants are fed three meals a day and that volunteers come and that the migrants are given donations of medicines, clothes, baby diapers and more.
He added that there are officers on the premises in case of emergency and that at least one migrant per day has typically required medical care.
Bhakta refuted claims in a recent Haitian Times article that the migrants “lacked adequate access to food, medical care and other necessities.”
The city declined to identify the second hotel to protect “the safety and privacy of the individuals.”
The news comes one week after the Del Rio camp was cleared as the U.S. government relocated roughly 16,000 people, 12,000 of whom were released in to the U.S. with orders to appear at an immigration proceeding at some point in the future. The average asylum hearing occurs two and a half years after a migrant crosses the border illegally and a majority of migrants don’t show up to the proceeding.
A Homeland Security spokesperson told CNN on Wednesday that roughly 4,600 Haitians had been removed from the U.S. on 43 repatriation flights from Texas to Haiti since September 19.
Asked whether all the Haitian migrants who turned themselves over to Border Patrol in Del Rio would be tested for COVID, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki has said that those showing symptoms would be immediately quarantined and tested. Many COVID-positive people do not experience symptoms and the virus can spread asymptomatically.
Encouraged by the success rate of their predecessors, an estimated 60,000 more Haitians are en route to the southern border via Colombia and are expected to arrive in the coming weeks.