Megan Ulu-Lani Boyanton reports on the business beat at The Denver Post. Previously, she worked in Washington, D.C., as a Capitol Hill reporter at Bloomberg Government, covering agriculture and trade policy. Megan received her master's in mass communication from Arizona State University.
Venezuelan migrant Juan Carlos, left, takes care of his friend’s daughter Arantza Borges, 2, while they and other migrants wait in line to meet with Spanish-speaking volunteers to help them begin the work permitting process at a local hotel in Denver on Feb. 5, 2024. Migrants coming to Denver from Venezuela had all sorts of careers in their native country, but getting work authorization in the U.S. can take six months or longer.
While they wait for cases that can take years to be resolved in overloaded federal immigration courts, work is their lifeline and their path to self-sufficiency — one that also could reducelike Denver that are supporting the new arrivals. Federal law allows migrants to obtain work permits while their cases are pending, but they face significant waiting periods that vary depending on how they applied for asylum.
Venezuelan migrants, who did not want to be identified, try to make money by cleaning car windshields for drivers at stoplights at Colorado Boulevard and East Colfax Avenue in Denver on Jan. 30, 2024. “They’ve got to navigate an underground economy,” Meyer said. “They’re working for cash or trying to figure out ways to subsist and to live because they don’t have valid work authorization.”
Young children gripped their parents’ hands. The adults, including Borges, hoped the next step could open doors for their new lives. During the screening process, volunteers ask migrants what kind of work they’re interested in. Regardless of whether they previously worked as physicians, engineers or mechanics back home, “they say what they want to work in is whatever they could get,” Denver City Attorney Kerry Tipper said., particularly in construction trades, so the clinics are meant to serve as a stopgap.
Mark Shaker, the founder of the Stanley Marketplace, echoed some of Tipper’s points Wednesday during a roundtable discussion in Aurora about Colorado’s migrant response. In Denver, the trio bounced from shelter to shelter and then spent time on the street before a church pastor let the group stay in her house for about a week. Similar generosity helped them to settle into an apartment with other people, covering the deposit and first month’s rent.
Emely Moron, 26, who has been in Denver for a month, said she hoped to return to Venezuela when it’s safer. For now, she plans to stay in one of the city’s shelters until March 28 with her 2-year-old son, her husband and her 14-year-old stepson. He said he wanted to assist other migrants the same way people helped him when he first arrived in the city. Now residents drop off donations at his house so he can deliver them to newcomers.
Meurer soon returned with arms full of blankets, coats, diapers, tampons and food orders from Taco Bell. Ariagnny Guerra, 30, talks on the phone with her husband Luis Finol, 26, at an apartment complex in Denver on Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2024. Finol is in a detention center in El Paso. Guerra is staying at the apartment complex with the 15 other family members.
“In reality, I would like to work in whatever ,” Guerra said, including cleaning houses, offices or hotels. Driving around the city, Meurer sees plenty of “help wanted” signs, she said.Darren Franz, 58, has also helped fill the job gap, though he initially didn’t set out to.
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