El Paso mayor responds to criticism after not issuing a disaster declaration over migrant surge

EL PASO, Texas -- The Mayor of El Paso continues to be criticized for not issuing a disaster declaration for the migrant surge in El Paso, but Mayor Oscar Leeser said he decided to not take that action based on current circumstances.

Mayor Leeser sad the city's goal is to not have any migrants here for more than 48 hours. With their current efforts, he thinks a disaster declaration is not necessary.

"I can tell you I'm not prepared at any time at this moment to do a state of emergency," said Mayor Lesser.

Mayor Lesser stood firm against pushback from city council representative Claudia Rodriguez in a city council meeting earlier this week.

"What is an acceptable number that we will continue to sustain this operation until we say, you know what, like, this is unsustainable, we need to declare a disaster declaration," said District 6 representative Claudia Rodriguez.

"Okay, I'm going to repeat myself one more time. It's not the city's taxpayer's money. We're being refunded by the federal government," said Leeser in response.

But how much will the city receive to cover the migrant transportation costs?

According to the guidelines for FEMA's emergency food and shelter program, expenses for long-distance transportation will be prioritized for up to 30% of the migrant population served. 

The city's spokeswoman Laura Cruz-Acosta said that doesn't mean we will only get 30% of what the city spent.

"You don't apply it to the funds, you apply it to the number of migrants that are traveling through our community," said Cruz-Acosta.

Cruz says 38,000 migrants have come through El Paso. But she says not all of those have needed city-funded transportation.

"The city has chartered 6,500 a little over 6,500 that accounts for only 16%," said Cruz.

Mayor leeser is also confident the city will be reimbursed and that the city can continue to care for the migrants while they're here.

"As long as our partners continue to work with us and continue to decompress and continue to make sure we have don't have people in the street that become homeless and don't have the ability to have shelter,--then we'd really need to have a serious conversation at that point," said Mayor Leeser.

The mayor added it has been almost 2 weeks since CBP released migrants into the streets, which was happening because shelters were out of space.

This milestone further distanced Mayor Leeser from issuing a disaster declaration.