Miami, Jan 8 (EFE; additional reporting by The Costa Rica Star).- Mayor Tomas Regalado warned Friday that Miami does not have the necessary funds to deal with all the Cuban refugees expected to arrive in South Florida from Central America over the coming weeks.

The municipal administration up to now has not been notified by the federal government about any plans to provide shelter for the Cubans stranded since November in Costa Rica, Regalado told EFE.

In Costa Rica, Foreign Affairs Minister Manuel Gonzalez explained that the government expects to collect approximately $232K in exit tax revenues as the migrants leave the country by air.

To get an idea of some of the shelter costs that the City of Miami may incur; Costa Rica has spent about $2 million, an estimate that includes the assignment of law enforcement and emergency personnel to manage the humanitarian crisis.

Since Nov. 15, when Nicaragua closed its border to the Cubans on grounds of risks to its security and sovereignty, 7,802 migrants from Cuba have been stuck in Costa Rica looking for a way to get to the United States.

Faced with the likelihood that many will end up in Miami, the mayor said that at present the municipal shelters “are full to capacity,” and asserted that the city simply does not have “the infrastructure to assimilate 20 or 30 more people a day.”

More than 43,000 Cubans entered the United States during the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, an increase of more than 77 percent over the previous fiscal year.

“We can’t predict how many will come this time, but we know the enormous cost their arrival will entail,” Regalado said.

A possible solution to the situation would be for the federal government to establish its own shelters in the area, given that Miami has neither the resources nor the capability to build them, the mayor said.

Regalado believed it unlikely that President Barack Obama will seek changes to the Cuban Adjustment Act, which allows Cubans who set foot on U.S. soil to obtain legal residence in the country after just one year.

“In Cuba they keep persecuting Cuban citizens, they keep harassing Cuban citizens and locking up members of the opposition or expelling them from the country,” Regalado, who sees no reason to change the law, said.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said Thursday that the United States government has no plans at the moment to change that law, which, according to Havana, sparked the current migration crisis in Central America. EFE