Migrants in Denver: City prepares for waves of additional people

DENVER (KDVR) — Information has surfaced about additional migrants arriving in Denver. FOX31 learned Thursday that the city should prepare for more to arrive in the weeks to come.

Some of the migrants that arrived over the weekend and beginning of the week said they have been on the road for months trying to escape dangerous governments.

But the big question is — why did many of them choose Denver and was someone behind their migration here?

There has been a steady stream of migrants arriving at Denver shelters over the last couple of months, with some 300 migrants now here. But it was a bus carrying 90 of them that arrived at Union Station earlier this week that signaled many more were coming.

“From what we have been able to gather there was sort of an informal gathering on social media among those folks themselves. This does not appear to be anything that was organized by another government entity to direct people specifically to Denver,” Mayor Michael Hancock’s Chief of Staff Evan Dreyer said.

Dreyer said the migrants are coming from South and Central Americas with a majority from Venezuela.

Some have been on the road for as long as four months and were recently being held back at the Texas border. The migrants would not give specifics about how and when they crossed into the United States.

City agencies are trying to gather more information about them and how many more might be coming.

“We are in a little bit of an information vacuum, we don’t know. It’s not like we are getting a phone call saying ‘hey there’s a bus on the way.’ We were trying to plan and anticipate that there will be more folks arriving,” Dreyer added.

It’s not clear how long the migrants will stay. Some told us they are hoping to leave for other cities as soon as possible.

“The only thing we are asking for of the United States is work,” one migrant from Venezuela who asked not to be identified said.

Another man, also from Venezuela, said he left that country because of the dangers there.

“The whole world know that Venezuela is experiencing a very critical situation now,” he said.

It is not clear if the two men will seek asylum.

It is clear that more migrants are expected, but how many and over what period of time it will be, is anybody’s guess.