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Relentless flow of migrants has one Texas town’s fire department hemorrhaging $21k per DAY

December 30, 2023 | | Print Article

The Eagle Pass, Texas Fire Department has been hemorrhaging $21,000 a day because of the influx of illegal aliens into the local community.

Speaking with Fox News, fire chief Manuel Mello said that nearly every hour, a firefighter has to be deployed to either the Rio Grande or a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) holding facility to address some sort of migrant-related emergency.

“There’s not a day where we don’t go to the river’s edge to transport patients, and the city swallows the cost,” he said.

The fire department has reportedly been averaging 45 calls a day — about 30 of them migrant-related — since mid-September. That’s up from an average of only 30 total calls.

Each migrant-related call winds up costing about $700, bringing the total to “approximately $21,000 in total” per day, according to Mello.

“We have all kinds of calls from minor cuts and bruises to hypothermia to heart attacks to broken bones to even childbirth,” he said. “So we’re transporting all kinds of patients, and they’re all migrants.”

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“Sometimes the hospital gets overwhelmed, and we’re waiting 20 to 30 minutes with a patient inside the ambulance for a bed because we only have one hospital,” he added.

Making matters worse, the Biden administration refuses to reimburse the city for all these added expenses, according to Rep. Tony Gonzalez. As a result, the city has lost over $500,000 this year alone.

“That’s just for the services provided. That does not include the overtime, that does not include personnel, that does not include fleet service and fuel… so, we’re definitely taking a hit,” assistant fire chief Rodulfo Cardona told local station KENS.

He added that the only hospital in the area is at capacity.

“The hospital is saturated on a daily basis to the extent that we have to resort to treatment, no transport criteria protocols where our own citizens are affected and cannot receive the medical attention that they need,” he said. “We try to do the best we can with what we have, but unfortunately this is the situation that we’re in right now.”

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“The people are tired, they’re frustrated. Our personnel – not only at the fire department, but PD, the sheriff’s office, all of local law enforcement – they’re exhausted. It takes a toll on everybody,” he continued.

KENS notes that the closest metropolitan area to Eagle Pass is also dealing with the aftermath of its migrant crisis.

“In San Antonio, the money to care for migrants is also running out with federal funding on hold. People staying at the Migrant Resource Center on San Pedro Avenue [said] the shelter is crowded. Data shows the center is at capacity. Nearly 700 cots were full Wednesday night, so many slept in chairs and on sidewalks outside the shelter,” according to the station.

“A spokesperson for San Antonio’s Human Services Department said in a statement that ‘the city, in collaboration with Catholic Charities, will continue to operate the Migrant Resource Center utilizing existing resources and services at capacity for as long as it is able. San Antonio must balance compassion with limited capacity.'”

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All this comes as the Biden administration is, stunningly enough, suing Texas for committing the crime of trying to enforce the immigration laws that the federal government refuses to heed.

“Starting in March, Texas will allow police to arrest migrants who enter the state illegally and give local judges the authority to order them out of the country,” the Associated Press reported.

The law is comprised of several smaller bills also packaged together.

One bill “creates a mandatory ten-year minimum prison sentence for smuggling of persons and continuous smuggling of persons,” according to a press release from Abbott’s office.

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Another bill “creates a criminal offense for illegal entry into this state from a foreign nation.”

“The law cracks down on repeated attempts to enter Texas by creating the offense of illegal reentry and penalizes offenders with up to 20 years in prison. It also provides the mechanism to order an offender to return to the foreign nation from which the person entered or attempted to enter this state,” the press release reads.

“The law provides civil immunity and indemnification for local and state government officials, employees, and contractors for lawsuits resulting from the enforcement of these provisions,” it continues.

Vivek Saxena
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