SAN DIEGO (Border Report) — Within 90 minutes on Monday morning, four Border Patrol buses pulled up to the Iris Avenue trolley station in South San Diego to drop off asylum-seekers who had been processed in previous days.
The migrants, from places such as Cuba and Colombia and as far away as India and Western Africa quickly filed out of the buses, picked up their bags and then high-fived and hugged one another in celebration.
From the trolley station, the goal for most was to get to the airport for flights that would take them to their final destination.
“I’m going to San Francisco,” Manuel Romero said in Spanish. “There’s nothing for me in Colombia, I’m going to work and send money back to my family.”
Romero said his journey from Bogotá to Mexico City and then to Tijuana was uneventful and relatively easy.
“Once I crossed the border on Saturday I got picked up by Border Patrol in about 15 minutes,” he said.
Others shared similar stories.
“I got to Tijuana on Thursday and here I am,” Miguel Benavides said in Spanish after being dropped off by one of the Border Patrol buses.
Manuel Romero, left, Milan, center, and Miguel Benavides are asylum-seekers who recently crossed the border between San Diego and Tijuana. Romero is headed to San Francisco, Milan to Indianapolis and Benavides is going to Denver. (Salvador Rivera/Border Report)
Benavides told Border Report he used a tree to help him scale the border barrier east of Tijuana without the aid of a smuggler.
“I have a friend in Denver who is going to help me, he has agreed to sponsor me,” he said.
Both Benavides and Romero said they had no idea their bus rides from Border Patrol stations to the trolley site were so controversial.
Many people, including San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond, have spoken out against asylum-seekers being dropped off in public.
Last week, a welcome center for migrants ran out of funding from the County of San Diego, and it closed its doors.
It’s a facility Desmond does not want in operation. Last week he called the $6 million spent on the facility a waste of money.
Nora Vargas, chair of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, told the Associated Press that although she supports the migrant welcome center, she said the county cut back on spending to address damages caused by severe flooding last month, and to address homelessness and lack of health care among its residents.
But Border Patrol says as long as the center is closed, it is forced to bring migrants to transit centers around San Diego.
The agency has not released the number of migrants dropped off so far, but according to Desmond, the figure is close 2,000, with 680 dropped off at the Iris Avenue trolley station as of 4 p.m. Monday.
He has also stated it’s up to the federal government to “clean up this mess.”
Desmond is opposed to providing another grant to reopen the welcome center, something that will be discussed during Tuesday’s scheduled board meeting.
Previous funding has been approved by a 4-1 vote.
Desmond is the lone Republican on the board.
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