Texas border city puts up temporary shelters to cope with ‘rapidly escalating’ migrant surge

The Texas border city of McAllen on Wednesday announced it is setting up temporary emergency shelters in response to what it describes as a "rapidly escalating" surge in migrants flooding across the border — and warning that the numbers are triggering a crisis in the city.

"Despite the City of McAllen and its community partners’ best efforts, the sheer number of immigrants being released into the city has become a crisis: a crisis the City of McAllen did not create and has proactively tried to avoid for seven years," the city said in a statement.

The border town’s city commission approved setting up temporary emergency shelter for the "overwhelming number of immigrants stranded in McAllen by U.S. Customs and Border Protection."