Fresno leaders treat asylum-seekers like human beings — not political pawns | Opinion

When a busload of political pawns from Venezuela via Texas and Colorado landed suddenly on Fresno’s doorstep, city leaders treated them like human beings.

The 16 or so people who last week arrived in California’s fifth-largest city without warning or notice — including multiple families with young children, couples and single men — received what these days constitutes as a dignified welcome.

Rather than be greeted with a cold shoulder, the Venezuelan refugees were given a helping hand.

When they turned up at Poverello House hungry and seeking refuge from the rain, they were given food. When the Fresno Mission ran out of beds on Friday evening, Fresno City Councilmember Miguel Arias (using his budget-allotted discretionary fund) put them up at a La Quinta Inn and bought them breakfast at IHOP.

City officials made phone calls to nonprofit law firms that provide legal assistance for undocumented individuals and introduced them to services provided by Fresno County’s Department of Public Health.

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Rather than being told to keep quiet, the refugees were asked if they wished to tell their story. A few did, recounting a harrowing 2 1⁄2-month trek through Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico before crossing the border at El Paso, Texas, where they surrendered to U.S. immigration officials and requested political asylum.

Texas governor’s nonsense

At which point they got caught up in the loathsome political machinations of Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and given three choices: New York, Chicago or Denver. They chose Denver, which reportedly received an influx of more than 5,000 undocumented immigrants from Texas during the month of December.

Little wonder officials in the Mile High City put up the “No Vacancy” sign.

“Once they got to Denver, they were bused somehow, some way to California,” Fresno Mayor Jerry Dyer said during a news conference at City Hall. “Many of them thought they were going to Indio. But they ended up in Fresno.”

Much to their good fortune, as things turned out.

That doesn’t mean Fresno boasts a surplus of services for those who lack a roof over their heads or the proper immigration status. That’s clearly not the case. But it does have some degree of sympathy for the less fortunate — a quality that is reflected in its elected officials. (Though a few homeless advocates would strongly disagree with that statement.)

While Fresno never designated itself as a “sanctuary city,” this busload of refugees assuredly could’ve wound up in a much more heartless place.

Like, for example, Clovis.

Blame game avoided

In situations such as this, it would have been easy (and perhaps expected) for Fresno’s popular Republican mayor and the most outspoken member of the City Council’s Democratic supermajority to engage in a political blame game over immigration.

Except that didn’t happen, at least not in public view. Rather than squabble over which party is at fault for what’s transpiring at the Mexican border, Dyer and Arias rightfully pointed to Congress.

Both at current Senate Republicans for their weak immigration bill that failed to address the estimated 12 million undocumented people already residing in the U.S., and also at Democrats, who did nothing about immigration reform when they were in power.

“What’s missing in this equation is action from Congress,” Arias said. “Ultimately, both parties have resulted in us having this crisis in our city and across the country.”

Dyer agreed: “In my opinion, both parties have failed for decades to fix our broken immigration system, and what we are now dealing with at the local level is the failure to act.”

Truer words have seldom been spoken, at least by two politicians running for elected office.

Dyer and Arias were split over what happens next. Dyer sounded a little too eager (at least for my tastes) to send the Venezuelan immigrants back to El Paso — even though most of their asylum hearings are scheduled elsewhere.

Arias was more open to them staying, if they so choose.

“All of the asylum-seekers in Fresno today followed federal law to enter the country,” he said. “It’s our hope that we will provide them sufficient support so they can attend their court hearings and proceed with their legal status.”

For treating a busload of refugees as human beings rather than political pawns, Fresno leaders deserve a pat on the back. Speaks well of them, and also of us.