Going Deeper
History
KC Welcome Alliance started with a simple “Yes”. In early August, 2022, Ruben Garcia, the executive director of the nonprofit Annunciation House on the border in El Paso, Texas, contacted Deacon Ross Beaudoin in Kansas City. Annunciation House assists asylum seekers with food, medical assistance, clothing, and help with getting to their sponsors, who are all over the US.
Annunciation House was being inundated with asylum seekers coming across the southern border and asked if KC would be
willing to accept a bus of asylum seekers and help them get to their sponsors. The answer was a definite “yes.” Soon after, Bill Cordaro connected with Ross and the two began to make plans to accept their first bus of immigrants
and asylum seekers from the southern border.
They had two guiding principles:
- The effort should be a broad community and interfaith experience (immigration is a human welfare issue affecting all)
- There needed to be put in place a sustainable structure to accept buses into the foreseeable future.
First Bus
At 6 am on December 13, 2022, a bus with 54 people arrived in Kansas City, Missouri. These people had just finished a 16-hour journey from El Paso, Texas. KC Welcome Alliance was there to receive its first group of asylum seekers.
Emerging from the bus were 15 families: with 30 children under the age of 16. They arrived with nothing more than clothes they were wearing. At the border immigration officials had confiscated everything they owned - from clothing and baby formula to personal medications and their
country of origin’s identification.
The families were welcomed by more than 40 KCWA volunteers. This KCWA Team was ready to feed our guests, provide them with clean clothes, a medical assessment, an opportunity to shower, and assistance with connecting to their sponsors elsewhere in the U.S.
There were eight families from Nicaragua, five families from Colombia, one family each from Ecuador and Bolivia. By the end of the first day, seven of the 15 families were already on their way to their sponsors, most of whom were on the east coast. Sponsors are responsible for airfare. However, if the sponsor can’t afford all the airfare, KCWA is able to help.
The families remaining at the end of the day had a warm place to sleep and woke up to a hot breakfast. By the end of the second day, all but one family was on their way to their sponsor’s home. The remaining family did not have a sponsor. Local agencies assisted them in locating a sponsor, and within four days they were on their way to their sponsor in Chicago.
The facilities that KCWA uses to welcome and house the immigrants is a small central city independent church. The pastor and congregation made every effort possible so that the guests’ stay would be a good experience for them. Along side the 40 volunteers of KCWA we had over a dozen nonprofit organizations working to provide services to our guests. Early on the first day one group, Advocates for Immigrant Rights and Reconciliation (AIRR), gave a workshop entitled “Knowing Your Rights.” This session outlined what our guests could expect as they work their way through the immigration system.
In the end, KCWA prevented 15 families from having to spend Christmas in a detention center on the border
or on the streets of El Paso, TX.
Learn More
The Darien Gap has been called one of the most dangerous 60 miles of forest terrain in the world. Because of its location there is a good chance that nearly half of the 15 families on our December 2022 bus had to make this journey. To learn more about the Darien Gap, tap the link below.