In the past four months, Washington, D.C., has spent more than $8 million to address the needs of thousands of migrants bused to the city from Texas and Arizona.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser declared a state of emergency in September to allocate an initial $10 million to deal with "the ongoing humanitarian crisis."
However, that money is nearly gone as D.C. continues to receive hundreds of asylum-seekers each month.
D.C.'s Director of the Department of Human Services Laura Zeilinger told News4 that soon the city will need to allocate more funding to address the issue. But it remains unclear how long D.C. and its taxpayers will have to pay to house migrants in hotels.
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"It is not sustainable that the District will be able to provide a limitless response to meet the needs of people here. So we are doing the best we can with what we have to recognize the humanity of the people who are comign to us. We welcome immigrants to our community," Zeilinger said.
While there are only estimates as to how many migrants have shown up in D.C. since April of 2022, New4 has confirmed that the number is in the thousands and it continues to climb.
In September 2022, D.C. housed 348 migrants in hotels. As of late December, that jumped to 847 migrants in hotels, including 245 families. Zeilinger said most of the thousands of migrants who have arrived to the city have moved on to other final destinations.
The number of migrant children attending D.C. Public Schools has more than tripled from 70 in September to 239 in late December.
"We're doing the best that we can to offer a caring, compassionate, humane response," Zeilinger said.
Bowser previously said D.C. would seek reimbursement from the federal government for all eligible services.
"We also need the federal government to do more around this issue," Zeilinger said.
Within the next few weeks, D.C. will announce contracts with at least two churches and other community-based organizations to set up welcome centers with set operating schedules, and they will announce the hiring of an executive director for the Office of Migrant Services.
Zeilinger was candid when asked how long D.C. could sustain the influx of migrants.
"It's really a national question. How long can our country sustain policies that bring people over the border into the United States without, necessarily, the resources or supports to survive, and to what degree can jurisdictions throughout the country adequately respond?" she said.
She said one of the obstacles in providing support is that migrants are not legally allowed to work or receive any federal benefits due to their asylum-seeking status.
