OCEANSIDE, Calif. — Border Patrol has released thousands of migrants onto the streets of San Diego over the past month.
Local nonprofits are working hard to keep up. Border Patrol has dropped off more than 13,000 migrants in San Diego since Sept. 13. and more than 1,000 of those people have been dropped in Oceanside.
"We don't know when this is gonna end but we have constant needs," said Logan Goverman with Interfaith Community Services.
Their organization created a makeshift site in a parking garage to help the migrants who are being dropped off by border patrol agents.
"I've met families that have gone through the Panama rainforest, several days without food and water with a two-year-old child who was still breastfeeding," he said.
Volunteers are making sure the migrants know their court dates and are helping connect them with their sponsors in the U.S. This often includes buying them plane tickets and trips to the airport. The volunteers are working up to 16-hour days, seven days a week. without them many of the asylum seekers would end up on the streets. An immigration attorney says this should be a wake up call to the federal government.
"If we want to meaningfully unpack this, we need to look at why legal immigration is so difficult and complicated and find ways to improve that system," said Jed Leano, an immigration attorney.
Interfaith Community Services says they're in need of more volunteers, monetary donations and hygiene kits to keep up with the demand.
"We're looking to have people take things for different days so there's less burnout. It's going to keep happening and we need to be here to make sure people get to their sponsors," Goverman said.
They've successfully connected 95 percent of migrants with their sponsors so far.
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