Migrants from South America are bussed into Albuquerque
By Angel Salcedo
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ALBUQUERQUE, New Mexico (KOAT) — There’s been an increase in migrants coming across our southern border over the last few months, and many of those migrants are ending up in Albuquerque.
Steve Decker is the CEO of Heading Home. Decker says there are anywhere from 80 to 280 migrants who have been brought into our city over the last few weeks. His organization took some of those people into their Albuquerque shelters earlier this week.
“We were notified that a large group of individuals was sleeping on the floor of a church earlier this week. As we started interviewing people, we immediately discovered that they did not speak English,” Decker said.
Decker said the migrants who were brought here came from Venezuela and Colombia.
“On Saturday night, we housed 47 people, and we were able to keep them all together. We know that they arrived together and were not told they were being brought into Albuquerque,” Decker said.
N’kazi Sinandile from New Mexico Women’s Global Pathways told a similar story.
“Last week, I was bombarded with several calls from shelters here in Albuquerque. One of them said that there was a bus that had 30 people. I asked where they came from, and I was told they were dropped at Lutheran Church,” Sinandile said.
Carol Pierce from Albuquerque’s Family and Community Services department said the city is prepared to create more housing to meet any extra demand.
“If we have unhoused people, we have capacity because that’s our main concern,” Pierce said.
The question is, who brought these migrants to Albuquerque?
“We’re getting a lot of conflicting stories out of individuals. I think they don’t want to tell their personal story out of fear. Fear of what might happen,” Decker said.
KOAT asked Pierce if the city was aware of any organization or group of people that were bringing migrants into the city. She said the city was not.
KOAT also reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for any information or investigations into who is bringing these migrants to Albuquerque. We’re still awaiting their response.
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