Asylum Seeker Response: RivCo Supes Approve $750K Funding

RIVERSIDE COUNTY, CA — The Board of Supervisors Tuesday approved $750,000 in funding for temporary shelter and other relief programs for undocumented immigrants brought into Riverside County by U.S. Customs & Border Enforcement and other agencies amid the ongoing border surge.

In a 5-0 vote without comment, the board authorized the Department of Housing, Homelessness Prevention & Workforce Solutions to distribute the funds as part of its Riverside County Asylum Seeker Response Program.

The allocation is intended to cover costs associated with "hotels and motels for isolation and quarantine, nutritional services ... and wraparound services for asylum seekers impacted by COVID-19," according to HHPWS.

The agency will retain $450,000 to cover the county's direct expenditures, but the balance, $300,000, will go to the nonprofit Galilee Center in Mecca, which provides shelter and related relief services for border crossers, officials said.

According to HHPWS, it is likely that the county will be able to recover most or all of the outlays for the migrant relief services by way of federal reimbursements.

Undocumented immigrants who are screened for COVID-19 and determined not to pose an exposure risk are "directly placed into Galilee's congregate shelter program" when federal agents release them from temporary custody, according to HHPWS.

The length of time immigrants spend in Riverside County ranges from a few days to a couple of weeks depending on if isolation or quarantine is needed and whether they have an asylum sponsor in the U.S. Any positive test results among the immigrants are not counted in Riverside County’s ongoing coronavirus case numbers, according to county officials.

Those who are infected or who have had known exposures are turned over to the county for a 12-day isolation period in a hotel or motel, with healthcare, meals and other services provided at no cost to the immigrants.

According to the Executive Office, since early March, more than 2,300 asylum seekers at the Mexican border have been brought to the county by federal agents. Officials estimate that over the next six months, another 6,900 border crossers will arrive in the county.

The number of asylum seekers dropped off in the county is entirely dependent upon CBP, according to local officials.

A state-funded COVID-19 testing and vaccination clinic for asylum seekers opened in Indio earlier this month. The new seven-day-a-week "Testing, Vaccination and Receiving Center" is operating in a parking lot near Highway 111 and Monroe Street.

—City News Service contributed to this report.