Mayor Bill Wells warns asylum-seekers becoming 'serious problem' after San Diego migrant center stretched to limit

NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: El Cajon Mayor Bill Wells discussed the worsening migrant situation in California as he joined co-hosts Ainsley Earhardt and Todd Piro on the February 22 episode of 'Fox & Friends.'

Wells voiced his concern in light of a migrant center in his neighboring city of San Diego closing its doors that day after it ran out of funds to provide assistance to the increasing number of asylum seekers illegally entering the United States.

What services did the San Diego Migrant Center provide?

The center aided up to 800 migrants a day, sending buses to county Border Patrol stations to pick them up, bring them back to the site, and provide services to prepare them for the journey to their final destination.

SBCS CEO Kathie Limbo issued a statement saying, "As the number of migrants arriving at the center has increased significantly over the last few weeks, our finite resources have been stretched to the limit."

Data from the US Customs and Border Protection shows that nearly 140,000 illegal immigrants in total have crossed into the San Diego sector since Fiscal Year 2024 began on October 1, reported Fox News.

Mayor Bill Well's concern

"Over the past few months, we've seen 100,000 migrants come across the San Diego border," Wells told the co-hosts. "A lot of those have been absorbed by this county shelter that used taxpayer money. They asked for $3 million and they spent over $6 million and now they say they're out of money."

"So we're going to see migrants congregating in our streets," he warned. "The Border Patrol tells us we're going to go from about 300 drop-offs a day to maybe a thousand drop-offs a day, so I think it's going to become a pretty serious problem pretty quickly."

When Piro asked where the migrants would be put up instead of the center, Wells stated that hotels were not an affordable option.

"They spent up to $8,000 per person per month to put somebody up in a hotel, and they seem to have no problem spending that kind of money. It ruins the neighborhoods, it destroys the hotels, it destroys our security infrastructure. And it's really bad for everybody," he said.