Group that helps refugees seeks volunteers

in the number of unaccompanied children crossing the border in our area. at that time — 26- thousand unaccompanied children had been found. the monthly totals of the children had increased since january … and in june officials recorded the second-highest average of 127 children per day. customs and border protection spokesman ramiro codero shared his concern with abc-7: “we’re always worried, and we’r always prepared to deal with these situations. and last year here in el paso, we did not necessarily have the traffic coming through here, but we were dealing more with the family groups being flown here for us to help with the process.” refugees are once again making their way to the borderland in increased numbers. because of that, the annunciation house, which offers temporary hospitality for incoming refugees, is looking for volunteers at its “new” nazare house. abc-7’s iris lopez has more on that request, iris? rick, estela, just monday, loretto- nazareth took in 68 refugees. the heaviest days for the loretto- nazareth home are mondays and friday, and the reason for that being– they just do not have enough volunteers to operate the facility on weekends. 3:00 “and we have been averagin 40-75 people per week. all of those people were people that entered right on the el paso border.” ruben garcia is the director of the aunnunciation house. 7:08 “anunciation hous operates several sites, this is just one of them they dont drop them off here they drop them off at our loretto site.” an that loretto site is where most of the refugees entering the us through el paso are being sent. 3:36 “th reason that ice sends them to us is because we dont want anyone out on the street.” loretto nazareth has gone from seeing 10 to 20 arrivals in a single day to as many as 75. 4:10 “because right now with this whole sirian thing understand that ice does not release you until after they have finger printed you, they have photographed you they have gotten your name any kind of documentation… once cleared, refugees in the el paso area are sent to facilities that offer temporary hospitality and travel assistance– such as loretto- nazareth. 21:27: “the first thing is to say to you, you are no longer in immigrations hands you’re now with the church” loretto-nazareth averages 125 to 175 immigrants weekly. 11:15 “and i a little bit concerned that that number is going up.” the main concern for garcia is having the means to tranport people to airports or bus stations. 10:33 “what we really need are the volunteers…when maria and her kids are ready to go to the airport we need someone to come pick them up that has the time. drive them get down with them..” garcia believes violence in other countries is a main reason for the surge. 13:16 “so it’s gonna b an interesting 4 weeks from now were now at 175 to 225 to 250 per week and so you know we just need the help of volunteers you know there’s just a lot of people that can help us to maintain that.” garcia says 70 percent of the refugees he sees are from central america–with a majority of them being families. iris, ruben garcia has been working with refugees for 38 years now, he understands some of the struggles they deal with. how does he feel about the issues with syrian refugees? i asked him that question over the phone and he told me that he believes that people who are forced to flee their country need the support of the rest of the community, and that he would definetely provide hospitality to them. to find out how you can volunteer, go to kvia.com and we will have a link with more information under links mentioned. customs and border protection is changing up what it calls its eyes in the sky