Kansas City volunteers help migrants seeking asylum in U.S.

The toddler pressed her palm against the car window overlooking the Missouri river as she shifted in her non-upholstered booster seat and over-sized pink jacket, both donated by Kansas City volunteers. She leaned into her mother, squished into the middle seat, and twisted her mouth until her lower lip quivered.

Then she began to cry.

“Mi hija,” “My daughter” said her mother, trying to grab her attention.

The 2-year-old looked over as her father lifted his hand to play with the sunlight beaming through the opposite car window, slowly letting the rays seep through with a few bends of his finger: a last ditch attempt to comfort her in the final hours of their 2,000-mile journey. From that point on, she was quiet.

Over the last week the toddler and her family had fled Colombia, scrambling between countries until they made it across the U.S border. They slept in a U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility, where their clothes and personal belongings were taken away, then boarded a 15-hour bus to Kansas City, alongside 53 others seeking asylum in the United States, each of whom were quietly released onto the steps of a metro area church at 5:30 a.m., and watched over by volunteers.

Their family is among the first group of migrants from Central America to be shuttled into Kansas City as part of a new partnership, where local nonprofits are able to assist an El Paso, Texas organization left overwhelmed by the number of people seeking asylum and in need of aid. For the majority of families, Kansas City will serve as only a pit-stop. A place to receive food and medical care before they are sent to another city to be supported by a U.S relative, or another sponsor, as they wait for their asylum claims to be processed.

Kansas City Welcome Alliance Coordinator Bill Cordero, who facilitated the arrival of the 15 families at a metro area church, said his group agreed to help enlist other volunteers and local community groups dedicated to helping migrants.

“It was brought to our attention that it would be possible to keep families out of a detention center or off the streets of El Paso for the holidays,” Cordero said. “So we said let’s just see what we can do.”

Volunteers came out of the woodwork, according to Cordero, with organizations like Troost 39 donating clothing and the nonprofit Care Beyond the Boulevard dispatching a medical team.

But despite the overwhelming support, the families’ arrival was kept under-wraps from most community members due to fears of anti-immigration backlash.

A Star reporter was allowed to watch the event occur under the condition that the story be published days after the families departed and that the newspaper not reveal their names, location or use their own photographs.

The KC Welcome Alliance team conducted background checks on both the reporter and volunteers. Two security officers flanked the church exits and entry ways.

“Kansas City is a very welcoming city. I’m just concerned about the crazies out there,” Cordero said, citing inflammatory rhetoric by political leaders as reason for keeping the effort covert.

A number of volunteers also expressed concern for the families, worrying that without a sponsor or the immediate funds to travel, some would wind up remaining in the metro, where the local immigration court’s three judges have denied between 80% and 90% of the asylum cases assigned to them, according to 2017-2022 clearinghouse data.

“We are sharing the facts with our families and saying ‘Hey, there are possibly, maybe other states that are a little bit better.’ But we’re not the attorneys,” said Karla Juarez, Executive Director of Advocates for Immigrant Rights and Reconciliation (AIRR)

“It’s a gray area. We can’t really tell them to leave, but also the rates are so low that it would be hard for them to stay.”

‘Get them safe’

Families slowly trickled out of the large black bus that had carried them through the night and into the dimly lit church hall.

Rebecca Summers, a spokeswoman for the KC Welcome Alliance, said a number of people needed medical attention following their trip. Others were in need of warm clothing and offered coats from a line of donation bins.

The rest of the asylum seekers strolled into the main atrium, past newly decorated Christmas trees, and sat around one of the 15 tables decorated by volunteers. All they had were wrinkled plastic bags, provided by border patrol officers to hold their immigration papers and a now emptied water bottle.

They waited here while the few Spanish-speaking volunteers came around with laptops, calling their families to book plane tickets able to get them to their new home before the holidays.

“So we just discovered that one family does not have a sponsor,” said Trinidad Molina, a volunteer and board member of AIRR, as he scratched his head.

“Now I have to figure out if there’s any organization in another state that can help them, because its going to be hard to find a place for them here.”

“It’s a really tough situation,” Molina said of the family, originally from Nicaragua.

Despite being well educated and previously working high paying jobs, they were forced to flee due to violence and economic hardship, according to the mother of two, who spoke through a volunteer.

Molina explained that asylum seekers without a sponsor have difficulty finding housing, medical care or any reliable income since their immigration status is in flux. Within 60 days they must check in with their local Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in the area. By the end of their first year in the U.S, they have to file a claim for asylum. Once an immigration court judge hears their case, each asylum seeker will have to prove that they are a member of a persecuted group and under threat in their native country, in order to keep from being deported.

“They’ve gotten themselves this far. We just have to get them safe,” Molina said.

In the attic of the church, bare brown cots and outdoor camping tents were set up for each family to provide them with a safe place to rest over the next three days, as volunteers worked to find more long-term arrangements.

The following hours served as a marathon of filing paperwork, chasing down children, monitoring the showers, distributing food, clothing, hygiene products, and occasionally driving families to the airport hours in advance of their flight.

Kansas City police officer Octavio “Chato” Villalobos, who was stationed at the church, found himself tearing up at the sight of the families. His own parents had fled Mexico before he was born.

“I have four teenagers and I would do exactly what they’re doing for a chance at something better.”

One last flight

The 2-year-old was asleep on her mother’s lap by the time her father and Trinidad Molina had collected the family’s boarding passes.

Before leaving, Molina turned to the man at the United Airlines front desk.

“They’ve only been here for a few days. They’re asylum seekers. They’re going to need someone to help them make their connection.”

“No worries,” the man said, before turning to the father of the toddler and delivering instructions in Spanish.

The 2 year old’s limp body swayed as her mother struggled to carry her through security. She dropped their passports in a plastic bin, along with both her phones: the one she carried from home in Colombia and the one she needed to send pictures of herself to ICE every afternoon, which she hated.

The young mother was eager to leave. In less than 24 hours, she’d be reunited with her father, a resident of the U.S, who she had not seen in six years.

“We’re very grateful,” she said to Molina.

Life in ICE’s detention facility had been difficult, especially for her child, she said. The couple look forward to spending Christmas as a family. One day, the pair said, they’ll be able to give their daughter a piano.

But only a few gates south, another group of asylum seekers were not so lucky.

This family of five didn’t have passports. And though Molina and another volunteer insisted that the ICE documents issued to them were enough to get through security, the TSA agent disagreed.

The family stood in silence, each shouldering a church-donated backpack with the few possessions they could carry, as the volunteers argued. It was getting late.

With sullen faces, the family trudged back to an exasperated volunteer’s car. A staff member of the airline assured them a mistake had been made and they could catch the next flight in the morning.

Their youngest son, another toddler who had walked the border and braved a 15-hour bus ride earlier that day, followed his siblings out the door of Kansas City International Airport. With a sigh, he dragged his stuffed green dinosaur across the curb and disappeared into the night.

I’m a breaking news reporter, who helps cover issues of inequity relating to race, gender and class around the metro area.