Federal funds to cover expenses related to aiding people at the San Antonio’s Migrant Resource Center, during COVID-19 and Winter Storm Uri are on hold until San Antonio gives up information on the migrants it aided.
In a noncompliance letter to the City of San Antonio, the Federal Emergency Management Administration on March 11 wrote, “DHS/FEMA is temporarily withholding payments to your organization… The DHS has significant concerns that Shelter and Services Program funding is going to entities engaged in or facilitating illegal activities.”
The letter states that the department is concerned the entities receiving payment under the program may be “guilty of encouraging or inducing an immigrant to come to the United States.”
FEMA ordered the city to send all documents associated with the migrants aided at the city’s Migrant Resource Center within 30 days, “including their names and contact information; and a detailed and descriptive list of specific services provided.”
FEMA still owes San Antonio reimbursements, including $9.1 million pending from COVID-19 response and nearly $6 million for Winter Storm URI. But those funds will not come to the city unless the government gets the migrant information it seeks.
According to the city, San Antonio has spent $35.9 million of the $47.2 million awarded by the federal government to aid migrants passing by San Antonio. To date, $22.5 million has been reimbursed by FEMA, and a total of $13.2 million is pending reimbursement.
FEMA is also demanding that San Antonio must also meet a special condition requiring it and the organizations receiving FEMA funds to sign affidavits saying they have no knowledge or suspicion that anyone in the organization is participating in a crime.
“The FEMA letter states nothing specific to the City of San Antonio or activities at the Migrant Resource Center (MRC), which stopped accepting new arrivals on Feb. 3, 2025,” said City Manager Erik Walsh. “Rather, the letter expresses concerns generally that Shelter and Services Programs have been used to engage in or facilitate ‘illegal activities.’ … FEMA has requested that we respond and provide additional information, and we will do so.”
Catholic Charities of San Antonio received the same letter.
“At the Centro de Bienvenida MRC, we were able to help over 325,000 people,” said Antonio Fernandez, CEO of Catholic Charities of San Antonio.
The nonprofit is still figuring out how to provide the requested information on so many clients.
Catholic Charities received $32 million annually to assist new refugees with necessities like food and rent, acculturation, English as a Second Language (ESL) education, workforce development, GEDs and access to health care and legal resources.
More than 10,000 refugees in San Antonio who were receiving some level of service from Catholic Charities will be affected by the freeze, Walsh said. That includes refugee families living in 19 local multi-family properties, which will no longer receive Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) funds.
“Of these 10,000 individuals, the most impacted are about 300 refugees that arrived in San Antonio recently and were in the process of getting settled,” he said. “Effective this March, about 80 households will be without rental assistance from Catholic Charities. Most of the refugees are from Afghanistan, Syria, Congo, Venezuela, and Cuba.”
“These are people who came from horrible situations,” he said. “Now suddenly, we’re saying, ‘No, sorry, we cannot help you with grants, with food, with acculturation, sending your children to school.”
