Yesterday, we examined the effects mass illegal migration has had on the public schools of the small town of Stoughton, Massachusetts (pop. 29,000). Today, we take a look at the impact of illegal migration on another small town, this one far from the border but also all the way across the country from Stoughton: Tukwila, Washington (pop. 20,000).
Tukwila is a suburban community located just 11 miles from Seattle. That proximity has been a major factor in the town’s struggle with the migrant crisis. It all began in the summer of 2022 when a family of Venezuelans, here illegally, were encountered by Seattle police officers. Unable to suggest other options, the police suggested the migrants seek out the Riverton Park United Methodist Church down in Tukwila, whose pastor, Rev. Jan Bolerjack, had opened the church as a migrant shelter.
Since then, thousands more illegals have found their way to Tukwila. At first, most were directed there, unofficially, by Seattle employees, but lately the word has spread and migrants are now sometimes arriving directly at the local airport from cities like San Diego. The influx has cost the town at least $1.4 million out of its $78 million general budget, and officials are seeking help from its metropolis to the north.
But Seattle has its own problems. Its own shelters are said to be 92 percent full and so far King County has spent $5 million on caring for the newcomers. The state has allocated more than $32 million and promise more will be available in on July 1. Tukwila is scheduled to receive about $2.5 million of that, but still the town keeps asking its neighbor for help.
The Seattle City Council, for its part, is facing a more than $250-million budget deficit later this year and is not in a generous mood. A declaration of emergency would free up more shelter space (Tukwila declared its own emergency in October), but city officials are reluctant to do so. Hamdi Mohamed, director of Seattle’s Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs, has said the city doesn’t need such a declaration:
I don’t want us to declare emergencies that will cause unnecessary alarms. I do believe that the city of Seattle can address this issue effectively without resorting to measurements that raise public concerns at that level and, at times, puts immigrants and refugees and migrants being labeled as emergency-creating communities.
Meanwhile, Seattle City Council President Sara Nelson has said the Council’s focus should be on the “people of Seattle,” not elsewhere. It’s now obvious that Seattle wants no part of Tukwila’s migrant crisis, which it helped create. All this has left Rev. Bolerjack feeling high and dry. According to the Seattle Times, “she wonders when government leaders will step in and take this crisis off her hands”:
I thought we were just kind of holding [the crisis] until someone else took it. No one’s taken it yet.
Nor is anyone likely to. Sadly for her sake, the Reverend is now learning about the game of Migrant Hot Potato.
For more, see the Seattle Times.