{"id":311837,"date":"2026-06-18T15:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T15:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/311837\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T15:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T15:08:09","slug":"amid-trumps-immigration-crackdown-one-tampa-pet-rescue-is-dealing-with-a-flood-of-animals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/311837\/","title":{"rendered":"Amid Trump’s immigration crackdown, one Tampa pet rescue is dealing with a flood of animals"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tA dog at Mercy Full Project \/\/ Chris Young, WMNF News, 6\/11\/2026<\/p>\n

Listen:<\/p>\n

Shelters across the region are facing an overwhelming number of animals due to economic constraints, housing issues, and deportations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Heydi Acuna is tending to the dogs at the Mercy Full Project. It\u2019s a foster-home-based animal rescue located at a small house in West Tampa.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Heydi Acuna and a peer pose with Lolita \/\/ Chris Young, WMNF New, 6\/11\/26 <\/p>\n

She was inspired to open the rescue after seeing various animals roaming the streets in her childhood hometown of Bogota, Colombia.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She stops to show Lolita, a dog she says has been at the rescue for over a year.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cLolita was actually part of an immigration case. The owner of Loli had another dog, and they had babies, and he contacted me last April, right after the new administration, and he needed to get rid of his dogs because he was in the process of getting deported. And I think sadly he got deported.\u201d Acuna told WMNF.<\/p>\n

The Mercy Full project opened in 2019. They take care of strays and pet surrenders.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But Acuna says the uptick in animals needing rescuing is the worst she\u2019s ever seen.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve never seen the amount of strays coming in in any of the organizations in the area, especially with us, because now they know we have space, and capacity, they come all the time, like, we in the last week, for example, we have taken probably around 40 strays just from those areas where lot of immigrants used to live.\u201d Acuna said.<\/p>\n

Shelters across West-Central Florida are consistently\u202foperating\u202fwell above\u202fcapacity.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Hillsborough County\u202fPet Resource Center is currently\u202fat about 150% capacity for dogs; some have been at the shelter more than 100 days.<\/p>\n

Chelsea Waldeck, division director of Hillsborough County\u2019s Pet Resource Center, says it\u2019s a variety of factors, including a changing economy and housing prices.<\/p>\n

She says they have also seen a small number of animals coming in from deportations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Outside of Mercy Full Project \/\/ Chris Young, WMNF News, 6\/11\/2026<\/p>\n

\u201cSo for us, it really is very tough. You know, we love these animals as if they were our own, so for us, we want to make sure they are getting into good home, so for us we want to make sure they are getting into good homes, we wish we could take them all home with us if we could.\u201d Waldeck said.<\/p>\n

Back at the Merciful Project, Acuna is looking for volunteers, foster parents, and donations for the overwhelming amount of animals they care for.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Despite the hectic situation statewide, Heydi Acuna says she still finds joy in her job.\u00a0<\/p>\n

She is currently looking for volunteers, foster parents and donations to support the overwhelming number of animals under their care.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel [like] the happiest woman alive. I am so happy, even with the biggest problems that we ever face, I\u2019m just happy to be here \u2013 I\u2019m happy to see them how they come in, and how they leave our organization.\u201d Acuna said.<\/p>\n

For more information and to see how to adopt Lolita<\/a> and others, click here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A dog at Mercy Full Project \/\/ Chris Young, WMNF News, 6\/11\/2026 Listen: Shelters across the region are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":311838,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[4271,1684,135,137,136],"class_list":["post-311837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-animal-shelter","tag-animals","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311837","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311837"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311837\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}