Annunciation House renting out motels in order to accommodate surge of migrants

El Paso nonprofit Annunciation House has been sheltering migrants for decades.

But a recent surge of undocumented immigrant families crossing over to the United States has forced the group to find housing outside of its usual network of shelters.

On Monday, the Annunciation House began renting out two different motels in El Paso.

“This week, we will have received 1,300 refugees,” Annunciation House Director Ruben Garcia said. “They’re inexpensive hotels, but they’re costing us about $1,800 a day to rent each one of them.”

Garcia said the number of migrants they house fluctuates.

“Every once in awhile, you have a surge. In the past five, six years, this is the third surge that we’ve had to deal with,” Garcia said. “To us a surge is when we are receiving more than 1,000 people per week.”

Garcia said the Annunciation House works with a group of churches across El Paso and Las Cruces. The network of shelters can handle about 750 migrants at a time.

The latest statistics report from U.S. Customs and Border Protection revealed that 12,312 family units were apprehended in Fiscal Year 2018 in the El Paso Sector. That’s an increase of 43 percent from the previous Fiscal Year.

“Because of the surge, we have reached out to the school districts. We’ve reached out to the housing authorities to see if they have buildings that might be suitable — they are not using — that we might be able to use,” Garcia said.

Garcia chose not to identify where the motels are because he does not want people showing up for safety and security reasons.