LAREDO, Texas — Walking through the aisles of bunk beds at the Laredo Holding Institute, you’ll find Bibles, coloring books and stuffed animals. There is a sign of the community living here: families finding their way to their next destination.

The Holding Institute, a nonprofit shelter in Laredo, is no stranger to assisting migrants, but things had been quiet since border crossings dropped to historic lows. So it was a surprise when they got a call from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) saying a bus was on its way with migrant families.

“I think the first night was pretty high,” Director Michael Smith said. “Maybe 75, 85 [people].”

The buses have continued coming since that first one in mid-January. The Holding Institute said it has received about 463 people so far. All are migrant families who were detained while living in the U.S., not recent crossers. Smith said they’re coming from the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, about an hour north of Laredo.

“The change now, as opposed to years past, is we’re getting an increase of arrivals who have been in the system for a matter of years, and they are circling back,” Smith said.

U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, said he recently met with the deputy ICE director to clarify who is being released and why.

“It looks like they’re picking up people, even ones that are in process to become legalized,” Cuellar said.

Cuellar also said the meeting confirmed that the people being released to Laredo are families.

While it wasn’t directly referenced as a reason for the releases, a ruling known as the “Flores Settlement Agreement” states the government is legally not allowed to hold children in immigration detention for longer than 20 days. The center in Dilley, the only facility the Holding Institute is receiving people from, only holds children and families.

Spectrum News 1 reached out to ICE three times to confirm why people were being released and why they were detained. They did not answer.

In a Feb. 5 interview, Laredo Mayor Dr. Victor Treviño told Spectrum News 1 he worried about public health in his city. Among other problems the migrants are facing, there have been several measles cases reported in the Dilley facility. Treviño, who served as Laredo’s health authority during the pandemic, said outbreaks in a border town can be particularly difficult to manage.

“If you get people with unvaccinated status or variants of measles from other countries and put them together in detention centers…that could cause a further outbreak of measles variants, and that is concerning,” Treviño said.

While arriving in Laredo may be a setback for some families in the immigration process, Smith said they have been “eager” to leave as soon as possible.

“When I say that they are eager to go home, they aren’t eager to go home to Cuba. They’re eager to go home to Minnesota; they’re eager to go home to Los Angeles,” Smith said. “That’s their home. That’s what they gave up everything for, and that’s where they want to return.”