Once again, in just the first week of 2023, we find ourselves talking (and writing) about immigration. It’s a subject that has dominated since man found himself swinging to new and bigger trees. But today, instead of migrating to new and more verdant groves, it’s men and women lining up and hoping to step into a new land rife with opportunity they could only dream about in the lives they left behind.
At the U.S. southern border, fully armed guards are dutifully keeping watch for men, women and children hoping to find a way across a national border, the only thing separating them from the new life they’re seeking. But for guards, job one is making sure they stay where they are. Still, the border, in many places, remains a sieve. Immigrants, as they always have, continue to come.
Some who’ve crossed have landed in U.S. cities far from the border, including Denver. Others have found themselves in places like New York, Chicago, Martha’s Vineyard. In many cases, they’ve arrived in these strange and new cities courtesy of U.S. governors who put them on buses and planes and exported them north. It’s an empty and symbolic gesture but one that does engender attention.
For the past month, Denver city officials estimate more than 3,000 immigrants have arrived, many in the dark of night. The city, surprised by these busloads of new arrivals, has provided shelter, but at a cost. It’s estimated that the bill to date is around $3 million. The city has dedicated two recreation centers—both unnamed—for housing these individuals and families. Denver Mayor Michael Hancock has also labeled this flood of new migrants a crisis.
The new arrivals, said Hancock, “have put an immense strain on city resources to the level where they’re on the verge of reaching a breaking point.” If the numbers continue at the current rate, said Hancock in a recent news conference, a breaking point is near.
El Paso, Texas, is a city that may have already reached that point. The border city has seen up to a thousand immigrants a day arriving. The city, churches and local organizations are working almost non-stop trying to care for them. But as hard as they’re working, the flow has overwhelmed. A number of city streets are cluttered with men, women and children, literally living under anything that will keep them warm as they try to find a new life.
“The best I can say is they are scared,” said El Paso Deputy City Manager Mario D’Agostino. “They have taken a tremendous journey to get where they are … and now that they are here and they don’t have the legal paper to be here, they are just concerned about that,” D’Agostino told the El Paso Times.
The bottleneck at the southern border is a majority of Mexican and Guatemalans, said Customs and Border Patrol officials. But the influx also includes African, Asian, European and Middle Eastern arrivals.
The border crisis, said Denver immigration attorney, John Reardon, has many components, including basic survival. People are fleeing everything from gangs, government corruption, domestic violence, even basic survival issues—daily sustenance. But they must still prove their case.
But too few come here with a realistic understanding of what awaits once they reach the border. “They’re told there’s opportunity to seek legal status,” he said. “They’re coming here for a better life.”
Reardon is honest with those who come to him seeking that golden ticket of legal status. “A lot has to do with preparing the person for what they want to do and what we can do,” he said. “Is it worth the money to hire an attorney?” Odds, he said, are usually against proving the case for someone seeking asylum. “Most get denied.”
A Trump era policy known as Title 42 has been used to block thousands seeking asylum. The law was set in place during the COVID pandemic as a means of containing the virus and those who might have it at the border. The U.S. Supreme Court recently blocked the Biden administration from lifting it. As a result, CBP can quickly expel migrants at the border or ports.
Denver personal injury attorney Leslie Roybal has lived her life knowing the hardship facing the undocumented and others looking for a better life. Though she was born in Los Angeles, her mother is a Mexican immigrant.
“I don’t have to read about it,” she said. “I’ve experienced it.” Roybal, who before becoming an attorney spent a decade doing social work, watched her mother struggle, learn English, work menial jobs, live in fear before gaining legal status.
Today, as an attorney, she sees the pattern repeat itself with undocumented clients working in the shadows. Clients injured on the job live in fear that a life they’ve built might suddenly vanish. “I have to educate them, regardless of their status.” “It’s a real fear and impediment. It’s an extra barrier.”
While a few governors see the ploy of transporting immigrants to strange new cities as juice to fuel potential presidential candidacies, others see the tactic as grandstanding on the backs of those who are helpless and with little to no understanding of the law.
“You have to look at the person who’s doing it,” said attorney Reardon, “especially when it comes to politics.” Everything, he said, is optics. “Image,” he said, “is what they’re trying to achieve. ‘I’m tough on immigration,’ while playing political games. My base will get a kick out of it. In the end who it effects is not important to them. If it was, they wouldn’t be doing it.”
