OAN Staff Blake Wolf
1:50 PM – Monday, February 17, 2025
A San Diego migrant shelter that was launched in 2017 is shutting down after receiving no new “asylum seeker” arrivals, following illegal immigration policy changes initiated under the Trump administration.
The Jewish Family Service of San Diego announced that its migrant shelter facility was shutting down, resulting in 115 employees being laid off.
“With migrants no longer able to use the CBP One application, the San Diego Rapid Response Network (SDRRN) Migrant Shelter Services, operated by JFS, has not received new asylum-seeking families and individuals released from short term federal custody into our care. Due to these changes in federal funding and policy, the SDRRN Migrant Shelter Services will be paused until there is better understanding of future community needs,” the migrant shelter announced.
The facility shut down after the CBP One phone app, which was introduced during the Biden administration, was disbanded on January 20th. The app had offered a platform for illegal aliens to enter into the United States while waiting for their asylum case to be heard.
Over 936,000 individuals had made appointments via the app by the end of 2024, according to Customs and Border Protection.
According to grant records on the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), the San Diego-based migrant shelter received $22,077,365 in taxpayer funds through FEMA just in 2024.
“We’ve been preparing for these changes in federal policies and enforcement,” added CEO Michael Hopkins. “While there are no longer individuals or families seeking asylum released from short-term federal immigration custody to our Shelter Services, we are seeing increased needs for immigration legal assistance and other social service supports to vulnerable San Diegans. We’re also continuing to collaborate with our community partners to explore new ways to offer assistance.”
Meanwhile, Border Czar Tom Homan declared the shutdown as a victory, stating that the shutdown “tells us the border is more secure than it’s ever been,” during a Monday media appearance on Fox News.
“We’re [now] concentrating on the export program,” Homan continued. “Catch and release is over, so all those facilities that were at great taxpayer expense, to welcome people flying to the city of their choice, giving them a free hotel room at taxpayer expense, three meals a day, free medical attention – those days are over.”
Homan also revealed on X that although Border Patrol agents still encountered a total of 229 illegal aliens “across the entire southwest border” attempting to cross “in the last 24 hours,” the number is drastically lower than what it has been under the Biden administration, what it has been in the last decade — and even longer than that.
“That is down from a high of over 11,000 a day under Biden. I started as a Border Patrol Agent in 1984 and I don’t remember the numbers ever being that low. President Trump promised a secure border and he is delivering.”
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