Portland city councilors directed City Manager Jon Jennings on Tuesday night to take emergency action to set up an additional shelter at the Portland Expo to accommodate more than 200 asylum seekers from the southern border who are arriving in the city.
Jennings said the city’s staff already has begun working with officials from the Red Cross and the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention to staff the emergency shelter. The staff also would reach out to surrounding communities and community groups for assistance in handling the unexpected and unprecedented influx.
“We are, I think, in a very critical situation in this city,” Jennings told councilors.
The Expo would be a temporary shelter, available until the Maine Red Claws begin their season in October.
As the meeting got underway, Jennings told the council’s Health & Human Services and Public Safety Committee that 72 asylum seekers had arrived since Sunday and reported to the city’s Family Shelter in Bayside. By the time the 3 1/2-hour meeting concluded, that total had risen to 86.
And that does not include another 150 asylum seekers en route from San Antonio, Texas, city officials said.
The current number of families, primarily from the sub-Saharan countries of Angola and Democratic Republic of Congo, have put the shelter over its capacity, including a 75-person overflow space at the Salvation Army. Jennings said the city’s General Assistance office would likely be opened to accommodate the families.
The influx is not only putting the city’s shelter over capacity. It’s also expected to significantly impact the Portland Community Support Fund, which is believed to be the only local, municipally funded assistance program for asylum seekers in the U.S.
Asylum seekers, who are fleeing violence and persecution in their homelands, are not able to work until at least six months after they file asylum applications. As a result, they often end up in Portland’s homeless shelter and rely on state-funded General Assistance or the locally funded Portland Community Support Fund for basic necessities, such as food and medicine.
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In the past, many families presenting themselves at the southern border would be granted “parole” after passing an initial interview with immigration agents, which would make them eligible for the General Assistance program as soon as they arrived.
But Family Shelter Program Manager Jeff Tardiff said in an email Monday that none of the nine families, totaling 39 people, who showed up on Sunday had been paroled by border agents before being allowed to proceed to Portland.
“Please note that all families who arrived yesterday are not paroled and do not appear to have any GA eligibility,” Tardiff said Monday morning in an email to Jennings and other city staff.
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The Portland Press Herald/Maine Sunday Telegram reported in December about the increasing numbers of families from sub-Saharan Africa making the long and dangerous journey through Central America and Mexico to the southern U.S. border, where they ask for asylum. Many of the migrants ask to be sent to Portland, Maine, because of the support the city provides and because of the immigrant community that has taken root here.
“We heard that Maine was a place where a lot of people have been able to get asylum,” a man named Matare told the Press Herald after arriving in Portland with his wife and four children.
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The current influx of arrivals comes a week after a CBS affiliate in San Antonio reported last week that officials were struggling to handle an influx of about 350 asylum seekers from Angola and the Congo. The station quoted an assistant city manager as saying they hoped to be able to send many of the asylum seekers to Portland.
“The plan was 350 of them would travel from San Antonio to Portland. When we reached out to Portland, Maine, they said, ‘Please don’t send us any more. We’re already stretched way beyond our capacity,” interim Assistant City Manager Colleen Bridger told KENS 5.
City Hall Communications Director Jessica Grondin pushed back on the assertion that any city official discouraged San Antonio from sending people to Portland. Jennings said in his email to councilors that the city manager in San Antonio told him on Monday to expect 150 asylum seekers in the coming days.
“He said this is just the beginning as there are currently between 1,500-2,000 African migrants at the border seeking asylum with the probability of more to come,” Jennings said in his email.
Jennings said he was told by the San Antonio manager that U.S. Customs and Border Protection changed its policy on asylum seekers. As of June 4, border agents are releasing individuals to a point of destination in the U.S. without verifying a sponsor. And he said that thousands of people are “being bused to San Antonio for distribution throughout the U.S. according to the city manager.”
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It’s unclear why the new arrivals do not have paroled status or if it is related to any change in federal border policy. The Trump administration has instead been working to extend detention and expand its network detention facilities as ways to release fewer asylum seekers.
In April, President Trump threatened to send immigrants to so-called sanctuary cities, a term given to communities that have policies preventing local police officers from assisting federal immigration authorities.
In response to Trump’s plan, Strimling was quoted as saying “bring them on.”
Portland is not considered a sanctuary city, but does promote itself as open and welcoming to everyone, including immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers. A city ordinance says that city officials will not ask about a person’s immigration status, but it does allow local police officers to assist immigration authorities when asked.
Sue Roche, executive director of the Portland-based nonprofit Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project, said asylum seekers who pass an initial interview with an immigration official are considered paroled and can be released with a notice to appear in immigration court. However, individuals can simply be released with a notice to appear in court without formally being paroled.
“We have seen this in the past as well, although it is happening much more frequently now,” Roche said. “We are also seeing increased inconsistency in how (Customs and Border Protection) is handling each individual case. This does not change the fact that the person is an asylum seeker and that they are going to go through the same immigration court process in which they will submit an asylum application that will be adjudicated by an immigration judge.”
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