Hundreds of thousands of people have been expelled at the U.S.-Mexico border over the past three years under a public health measure, Title 42, meant to control the spread of COVID-19. The pandemic-era policy is expected to end on May 11, and that could mean a substantial increase in people crossing the border into the United States.
Some of those migrants will end up in Charlotte, and staff at one health clinic say the community isn’t prepared to meet their needs.
Rusty Price is the founder of north Charlotte’s Camino Health Center, a clinic that provides low-cost services to uninsured and underinsured people. Many of their clients are immigrants and Price says, in recent months, they’ve seen an increase in new arrivals.
“We are seeing immigrants arrive now who have no family here,” he said during a press conference on Thursday. “We ask them, ‘How long have you been here?’ They’ll tell us, a week, a month. That is causing us to prioritize.”
In the coming weeks, Price is expecting the number of newly arrived immigrants in Charlotte to grow rapidly as a result of changing border policy.
“A big wave is coming. The first part is here,” he said. “We know Title 42 has days, hours left. And that’s where we believe we need to be prepared as a city, as a community.”
Dr. Carolina Benitez, director of Camino Contigo, says many migrant families in Charlotte are already struggling to meet their essential needs, like housing. Some families are experiencing homelessness.
“It’s a problem that public schools have been bringing up for awhile now and that social service organizations are now bringing up,” Benitez said. “Unfortunately, the number of individuals and families that organizations like us can take on the full financial responsibility for is small.”
Price says some of that financial responsibility has been taken on personally by Camino staff.
“The extra things that we don’t have resources for, our staff have been giving out of their own pockets. My wife and I have spent all of our savings in the last three months,” he said.
Paola Garcia, the organization’s public relations director, is also housing a family that she met during a trip with Camino to the U.S.-Mexico border.
“We are receiving calls daily about families that have gotten to the border and been processed. They are stuck in these shelters that are nonprofits at the border. And these organizations have purchased their transport to send them here,” Price said.
Benitez encouraged Charlotte’s service organizations to be proactive before Title 42 is lifted.
“In many ways, we are reacting to the need we see right in front of us. However, there is still time to plan. We aren’t there yet,” she said.
Camino has released a report on the migrant experiencebased on interviews at the U.S.-Mexico border and in North Carolina. It calls for collaboration and coordination between service organizations to address humanitarian needs.
