Like many Americans, Imperial Valley resident Teresa Barriga Salgado has been tight on money. Keeping food on the table while juggling the expenses of her family’s everyday life can be a difficult task.

Teresa Barriga Salgado prepares bags to give to unaccompanied migrant minors. (Photo courtesy of Teresa Barriga Salgado)

However, Salgado made sure that these financial restraints didn’t stop her from assisting dozens of unaccompanied migrant children that left the detention center in her border town this summer.

“They are human beings no matter where they come from," Salgado said. "That’s what really motivated me to do something."

Having heard about a need for additional funding to care for the massive influx of unaccompanied minors in her town as well as throughout the nation, Salgado and a group of her former high school friends from the Class of ‘82 decided to come together to donate items and make goodie bags for some of the released youth.

“Homeland Security was giving out as many lunch bags as they could give to the people released from the camps, but sometimes it wasn’t enough,” Salgado said.

Salgado recalled having met groups of women and children, who did not have money or enough food to carry them through their journey across the nation.

Respecting Homeland Security’s policy on not accepting donations, Salgado and her friends handed out bags of cookies, trail mix, water and other useful items to the several released women and children as they waited at bus stops and airports.

“They were in shock when we gave them the bags,” Salgado said. “We would tell them, ‘We don’t have money, but here is some bags with food and water.’”

Apart from keeping them well fed, Salgado says she also wanted to make sure the minors knew someone in the U.S. cared about what happened to them, even if they didn’t know them personally.

“As a mother, I wanted to let them know that people do care because I would want someone to do that for my kids if I was in the same situation,” Salgado said.

As the number of unaccompanied migrant children began to drop in Salgado’s nearby border town of Calexico, she and others have stopped providing aid since it’s not needed as much.

Only 3,141 unaccompanied children were reported crossing the border illegally this past August, according to The Associated Press. Compared with the 10,622 children that peaked in June, August's numbers were the lowest since February 2013.

Although not as many unaccompanied migrant children are making their way through the border lately, Homeland Security is still dealing with heavy financial woes left in the wake of the summer surge of detainees.

“Though the worst is over for now, there are still bills to be paid and our border security efforts must be sustained to prevent another spike like we saw this year," Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson said in a statement.

Given the funding issues, the Obama administration renewed it’s plea earlier this month for Congress to provide more funding to deal the cost incurred this past summer.

Johnson noted that without $1.2 billion in additional funding for 2015, he will be forced to recover cost from other accounts, similar to the $405 million moved from the disaster relief fund earlier this summer, reported AP.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers patrol along the Mexico border fence.(U.S. Customs and Border Protection/ Wikipedia)

Living just minutes away from the U.S. and Mexico border, Salgado says she thinks the funds are definitely needed to help prepare the nation’s U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for another unexpected influx of undocumented migrant individuals.

“If the the officers and the states had more funding to take care of the border then the people could be processed more dignifiedly,” Salgado said.  

Unfortunately for Homeland Security and detainees, lawmakers seem to be avoiding addressing the contentious issue with November midterm elections just around the corner, reported the AP.

As other events, like terrorist threats overseas, have pushed border issues to the wayside, the most the Obama administration might see is some of the additional spending flexibility it has asked for in a temporary government funding measure slated for votes sometime next week, according to AP.

Staff Reporter Celeste Alvarez can be reached here or follow her on twitter.