Federal funds to cowl bills associated to aiding folks on the San Antonio’s Migrant Useful resource Middle, throughout COVID-19 and Winter Storm Uri are on maintain till San Antonio offers up info on the migrants it aided.
In a noncompliance letter to the Metropolis of San Antonio, the Federal Emergency Administration Administration on March 11 wrote, “DHS/FEMA is briefly withholding funds to your group… The DHS has vital considerations that Shelter and Providers Program funding goes to entities engaged in or facilitating unlawful actions.”
The letter states that the division is anxious the entities receiving cost underneath this system could also be “responsible of encouraging or inducing an immigrant to return to the US.”
FEMA ordered town to ship all paperwork related to the migrants aided on the metropolis’s Migrant Useful resource Middle inside 30 days, “together with their names and call info; and an in depth and descriptive listing of particular companies supplied.”
FEMA nonetheless owes San Antonio reimbursements, together with $9.1 million pending from COVID-19 response and almost $6 million for Winter Storm URI. However these funds won’t come to town except the federal government will get the migrant info it seeks.
In keeping with town, San Antonio has spent $35.9 million of the $47.2 million awarded by the federal authorities to assist migrants passing by San Antonio. To this point, $22.5 million has been reimbursed by FEMA, and a complete of $13.2 million is pending reimbursement.
FEMA can be demanding that San Antonio should additionally meet a particular situation requiring it and the organizations receiving FEMA funds to signal affidavits saying they don’t have any information or suspicion that anybody within the group is collaborating in a criminal offense.
“The FEMA letter states nothing particular to the Metropolis of San Antonio or actions on the Migrant Useful resource Middle (MRC), which stopped accepting new arrivals on Feb. 3, 2025,” stated Metropolis Supervisor Erik Walsh. “Quite, the letter expresses considerations usually that Shelter and Providers Packages have been used to interact in or facilitate ‘unlawful actions.’ … FEMA has requested that we reply and supply extra info, and we’ll accomplish that.”
Catholic Charities of San Antonio acquired the identical letter.
“On the Centro de Bienvenida MRC, we have been capable of assist over 325,000 folks,” stated Antonio Fernandez, CEO of Catholic Charities of San Antonio.
The nonprofit continues to be determining the best way to present the requested info on so many purchasers.
Catholic Charities acquired $32 million yearly to help new refugees with requirements like meals and hire, acculturation, English as a Second Language (ESL) training, workforce improvement, GEDs and entry to well being care and authorized sources.
Greater than 10,000 refugees in San Antonio who have been receiving some degree of service from Catholic Charities will likely be affected by the freeze, Walsh stated. That features refugee households residing in 19 native multi-family properties, which is able to now not obtain Workplace of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) funds.
“Of those 10,000 people, essentially the most impacted are about 300 refugees that arrived in San Antonio lately and have been within the strategy of getting settled,” he stated. “Efficient this March, about 80 households will likely be with out rental help from Catholic Charities. A lot of the refugees are from Afghanistan, Syria, Congo, Venezuela, and Cuba.”
Fernandez stated, “these are individuals who got here from horrible conditions. Now out of the blue, we’re saying, ‘No, sorry, we can’t show you how to with grants, with meals, with acculturation, sending your youngsters to high school.”
