The fire department in Eagle Pass, a Texas border town, grapples with over $21,000 in daily expenses addressing emergencies linked to migrants. With approximately 30 migrant-related EMS calls daily, first responders frequently rush to the Rio Grande or Customs and Border Protection (CBP) sites.
Fire Chief Manuel Mello shared with Fox News that they consistently transport patients from the river’s edge, and the city bears the $700 cost for each call, resulting in a daily expenditure of around $21,000.
“We have all kinds of calls from minor cuts and bruises to hypothermia to heart attacks to broken bones to even childbirth,” Chief Mello reported. “So we’re transporting all kinds of patients, and they’re all migrants.”
Mello added that the hospital often gets overwhelmed, and they’re “waiting 20 to 30 minutes with a patient inside the ambulance for a bed because we only have one hospital.”
On December 20, Representative Tony Gonzalez, representing the region, disclosed that more than 10,000 migrants were detained in Customs and Border Protection (CBP) facilities in the vicinity of Eagle Pass. Gonzalez noted that the federal government has not provided reimbursement for Eagle Pass’s migrant-related costs amid this surge.
Chief Mello expressed, “There’s no funding for this period,” highlighting the financial strain on the city. According to CBP, migrant crossings have exceeded 200,000 this December, slightly below last December’s record of over 252,000.
