San Diego is one of many local governments that have struggled to help migrants without sacrificing key services, including New York, Chicago and Denver. Like other border cities, migrants tend to stay less than a day.
Hundreds of immigrants were left stranded at a bus stop in San Diego, instead of at a reception center that had been serving as a holding area, because the local government ran out of funds earlier than expected. This shows how even the largest city on the country’s southern border is struggling to cope with the unprecedented influx of people.
Migrants who once had a safe place to charge phones, go to the bathroom, eat and organize their journey to other parts of the United States are now left on the streets as migrant aid groups scramble to help.
Border Patrol buses carrying migrants from Senegal, China, Ecuador, Guatemala and many other countries arrived in front of a transit center. Immigrant aid groups said they would be bused from there to a parking lot where they could charge their phones and take them to the airport. The vast majority planned to spend only a few hours in San Diego before catching a flight or being picked up.
«Are we in San Diego?» asked Gabriel Guzman, 30, a painter from the Dominican Republic who was released after crossing the border in remote mountains Thursday to the AP. He was told to appear in June before an immigration court in Boston, where he hopes to earn money to send him home to his three children.
Abd Boudeah, from Mauritania, flew to Tijuana, Mexico, through Nicaragua and followed other migrants to an opening in the border fence, where he surrendered to agents Thursday after walking about eight hours. The former molecular engineering student said he fled persecution for being gay and planned to settle in Chicago with a cousin who had been in the U.S. for 20 years. «I have dreamed a lot about this moment and thank God I’m here,» Boudeah, 23, said in perfect English. The volunteers gave instructions in English, Spanish and French to small groups, all of them single men and women. They used translation apps for other languages. «Let’s cross the street together and line up,» one volunteer noted on his phone, which he then translated into Hindi for a group of Indian men. «Tired of the road,» Alikan Rdiyer, 31, from Kazakhstan, said in Russian as he waited for instructions to give to a friend from Los Angeles who was picking him up. Border Patrol gave him a notice to appear in immigration court in August 2025 in Philadelphia, a city he had never heard of.
The transit center parking lot was full of cars, giving the migrants nowhere to stand, and there were no public restrooms. One cab driver offered a ride to San Diego International Airport for $100, double what rideshare apps were charging. Some migrants scattered into the neighborhood when volunteers couldn’t reach them and instruct them to wait on the sidewalk.San Diego County has donated $6 million since October to SBCS, a nonprofit formerly known as South Bay Community Services, to provide phone charging stations, food, travel advice and other services at a former elementary school. The group intended to keep it open until March, but Thursday was its last day.San Diego is one of many local governments that have struggled to help migrants without sacrificing key services, including New York, Chicago and Denver. Like other border cities, migrants tend to stay in San Diego less than a day before leaving, but large shelters operated by Jewish Family Service and Catholic Charities have been full for months, giving priority to families.
Nora Vargas, chairwoman of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors, strongly supported the immigrant welcome center, but said the county had to suspend spending while it assesses damage from January’s catastrophic flooding and addresses homelessness and lack of health care among its residents. «We have to be financially prudent about it,» he recounted.
SBCS, which has come under heavy criticism from some immigrant advocacy groups, argued to the county that its services cost $1.4 million a month. The county asked it to aim for $1 million. «It’s not that the funds ran out early, it’s that the funds were stretched to the max,» Newman Tsay said.
Aid groups have provided critical support to the new arrivals, which drew criticism from some quarters. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton this week threatened to sue and shut down Annunciation House, a decades-old organization that houses immigrants in El Paso. Paxton said the group may be «facilitating illegal entry into the United States. «Ruben Garcia, director of Annunciation House, rallied supporters at a press conference to denounce Paxton’s tactics. «It’s a full warning to other entities that also do hospitality work that they may very well be next,» he said.
SBCS had served 81,000 immigrants in San Diego since Oct. 11. A report to the county showed it spent $750,000 on staffing through Dec. 24 and $152,000 on operating expenses, including housing, transportation and security.