A resource center that the city of San Antonio set up in the summer of 2022 to aid a wave of asylum-seeking migrants will no longer accept new arrivals starting Monday, the city announced.
It plans to phase out operations due to the “sustained and significant decline” in the number of migrants traveling through San Antonio.
The city cited a 72% decrease in the number of migrants arriving between January of 2024 and January of 2025.
“The number of migrants currently arriving at the MRC no longer justifies the cost of running it,” City Manager Erik Walsh said. The facility cost between $1.2 million and $800,000 per month to run, according to various city estimates, and had a lease that could last up to 10 years.
Roughly 2,300 migrants arrived in San Antonio this past month, compared to about 8,200 in January last year, according to the city.
Just 88 migrants were at the center on Monday morning, according to the city.
That decrease comes as President Donald Trump has signaled numerous policy changes that could make migration through the asylum process more complicated, and vowed to deport millions of people who entered the country during the previous administration.
Though San Antonio was a partner to former President Joe Biden’s administration in helping manage the large number of migrants arriving under their policies, city leaders have also vowed to uphold their obligations to help federal law enforcement with the Trump-era policies.
“Until now, the MRC has served a vital role to ensure the safety and security of both residents and migrants passing through San Antonio… that is no longer the case,” Walsh said on Monday.
Uncertain funding
The Migrant Resource Center, also known as Centro de Bienvenida, has been the cause of much political debate at City Hall over the past two and a half years.
During the height of migrant arrivals in 2022, city leaders said it was critical to open the center to prevent them from crowding the San Antonio International Airport, the downtown Greyhound bus station and Travis Park while they sought transportation to family and friends in other cities.
But the center’s opening on San Pedro Avenue in July 2022 — in a Northside building previously occupied by CPS Energy — was handled with almost no public discussion, and came as a surprise to nearby residents.
The city handed over operations of the center to Catholic Charities, which just opened a new 40,560-square foot center, the Mother Teresa Center on the Northwest side, in early November that will provide refugee services.
Though the city and Catholic Charities expected and received significant reimbursement from the federal government for the costs of running the MRC, that money has appeared less reliable throughout Congress’ recent spending fights.
As of this month, roughly $12.4 million is pending reimbursement from the federal government, according to the city.
“As the city now finds itself in a place where future funding for the MRC is in doubt, closing the MRC was the only option,” Councilman Marc Whyte (D10) said in a statement Monday.
A second migrant transit center that the city stood up near the San Antonio International Airport was shuttered in April of last year.
