(WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- The head of a social services agency in Texas says he sympathizes with Chicago as the Midwestern city grapples with an influx of migrants.
Antonio Fernandez used to be an administrator at Catholic Charities in Chicago. Now, he’s the president and CEO of the Catholic Charities in San Antonio, about 150 miles from the border with Mexico.
“We are completely overwhelmed. It’s a different situation than you have in Chicago. We don’t have a bus coming every day. We have a thousand people coming every day,” he tells WBBM Newsradio.
Just like Chicago, Fernandez said, his organization is not warned how many people are coming or when.
He says contrary to what many believe, Catholic Charities San Antonio does not send buses of migrants to Chicago. Fernandez says that’s all Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s doing.
“We never send anyone outside Texas by bus. In my opinion, we should avoid that because that’s inhumane,” Fernandez said.
San Antonio is one of the larger Texas cities north of the border, and do it gets migrants from places like Eagle Pass, Del Rio, McAllen and Loredo.
Many migrants tell him they want to travel on to Chicago because they believe there will more readily be jobs and other opportunities for them here.
Catholic Charities in San Antonio served 280,000 migrants last year alone, he said.
The Catholic Charities migrant shelter serves 700 people, and the city of San Antonio has asked the organization to set up tents in its parking lot to shelter another 500.
Buses, taxis and Ubers stop daily at his agency dropping off migrants without warning. He said it’s very frustrating.
“We don’t know what’s going on. We truly, truly don’t know. We just know that more people are coming,” he said. “Even though we try to be ready for that, it’s hard because we don’t know if the bus is coming at two o’clock in the morning or four o’clock in the morning.”
Fernandez says unlike Texas, which is not providing his agency with help, Chicago and the state of Illinois work more closely with agencies like Catholic Charities in dealing with the migrant issue.
His organization’s work in serving migrants takes away from everything else the agency does in the community.
“It takes its toll on us,” he said.
Fernandez says he doesn’t know what the solution is. But he suggests if migrants are given visas, they can get jobs, pay taxes and not have to depend on others for food and shelter.
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