What's the Welcome Center? Former Phoenix school has sheltered thousands of asylum seekers

Fifty-seven asylum seekers — men, women and children from Guatemala, Brazil, India and Guinea — climbed off a bus at the Welcome Center one recent morning. The former school in Phoenix has expanded over the past four years into one of the busiest and most sophisticated migrant shelters along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Since the once-vacant building reopened in 2019 as a migrant shelter, more than 105,000 asylum seekers from 84 countries have passed through the same glass doors students entered.

The staggering number, including some 16,000 so far this year, reflects the record number of migrants arriving at the southern U.S. border in recent years seeking asylum.

Asylum seekers are often released in cities and towns in Arizona and other border states by federal immigration and border authorities. The releases are due to overcrowded Border Patrol facilities, a lack of detention space, legal agreements to protect children and laws that give people fleeing violence and persecution in their home countries the right to seek asylum in the U.S.

But the releases have often generated disorder, as communities strain to provide shelter and humanitarian assistance to a crush of asylum seekers amid a mounting homelessness crisis.

The Welcome Center, however, has played a key role in turning Arizona into a model for providing temporary shelter to asylum seekers released by federal authorities in a safe and orderly manner.

Buses arrive several times a day, seven days a week, bringing between 100 and 300 asylum seekers daily. Some come directly from Border Patrol stations or Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities. Others are arriving from shelters in Yuma and Tucson, which send asylum seekers to the Welcome Center in Phoenix to alleviate overcrowding in cities closer to the border. The center is run by the International Rescue Committee, a nonprofit that helps asylum seekers, refugees and other immigrants resettle in the U.S.

Most asylum seekers are only passing through Arizona after crossing the border and turning themselves over to U.S. authorities. They leave the Welcome Center within a day or two to travel by plane or bus to other states, where they have relatives or sponsors.

Despite all the activity, most people are unaware the Welcome Center exists. Even when arrivals spiked briefly in May during the end of Title 42 border restrictions, the center continued to house asylum seekers without a glitch. That is evidence the center has accomplished its mission: creating a large centralized location to temporarily house asylum seekers and avoid the chaos and strain that used to play out regularly when asylum seekers were released in Phoenix and other cities in Arizona.

“The Welcome Center has provided more capacity and coordination for a safer process for migrants while helping to reduce the burden on Arizona’s smaller border towns and communities that don’t have the resources or services,” said Luis Heredia, state director for U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz.

Chaos at Phoenix bus depot replaced by coordinated Welcome Center

Before the center opened in July 2019, federal authorities used to release busloads of asylum seekers at the Phoenix bus depot day and night, leaving them to fend for themselves.

Scenes of families sleeping on the floor with children, many sick with colds and respiratory illnesses caught during their long journeys, or wandering on neighboring streets begging for food, became commonplace from 2014 to 2018.

The releases created a political firestorm, drawing the ire of local and state elected officials, while humanitarian groups rushed in to deliver boxes of food, water, diapers and other supplies, turning the bus depot into a scene that resembled a refugee camp.

The disorder and confusion at the bus station mostly ended when a network of working-class Hispanic churches stepped forward in 2018, opening their doors to feed and house asylum seekers released by federal authorities.

But that effort quickly proved unsustainable. Aiding asylum seekers strained the resources of congregations. The congregations also became fearful after armed members of anti-immigrant groups began showing up, hurling accusations that the churches were facilitating illegal immigration.

Then the Welcome Center opened on July 27, 2019 — a collaboration between the International Rescue Committee, which provided resources, logistics and organizational skills, and grassroots groups such as the Phoenix Restoration Project, which provided the workforce.

The center's lack of visibility is by design. The International Rescue Committee has intentionally kept a low profile to avoid attracting the same kind of unwanted attention that plagued some local churches targeted by anti-immigrant groups that showed up to harass and intimate asylum seekers and volunteers.

There are no signs that identify the center. The building is hidden from view by a chain link fence with screening and fortified with a surveillance system and heavy locking gates. Buses enter through a rear gate, allowing asylum seekers to get off without being seen from the street. Even so, at least once someone has fired shots at the building, prompting staff to contact police, who can be seen patrolling the area.

"We have had some safety incidents," said Stanford Prescott, the senior communications officer for The International Rescue Committee, noting that no one was hurt. That is why "we are very serious about our safety. It's because there are these real threats out there."

From aid volunteer to running a major operation

Beth Strano used to collect water and prepare sandwiches to pass out to asylum seekers at the bus depot as a Phoenix Restoration Project volunteer. She now co-runs the Welcome Center. She is one of about 10 former volunteers hired by the International Rescue Committee to staff the center.

"Every single day and every single night, families ... were being released on a 24-hour schedule" at the bus station, Strano recalled. "The state of toddlers getting off the busses was horrifying. You know, no shoes, just wearing a diaper and kids hadn't eaten for days. It was very, very rough."

But the community responded, Strano said.

"We started to build systems that worked to help support people. We started to build relationships as grassroots groups with (the U.S. Department of Homeland Security) to coordinate when they had larger releases," she said. "And it built the foundation for us to come in and build something that could support everybody."

The center employs a staff of over 30 people. The bulk of the center's funding comes from federal emergency funding allocations to help communities provide aid to asylum seekers. The rest comes from private donations, Strano said. The center has received nearly $9.9 million in public and private funding in 2023. That includes more than $6.4 million through the Emergency Food and Shelter Program and nearly $2 million through the Shelter and Services Program, both administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. There's also been almost $800,000 in other public funding. The center rents the building, which had been vacant for years, from the Phoenix Elementary School District.

By providing humanitarian assistance to asylum seekers, the Welcome Center reduces costs that used to be incurred by other local aid groups and medical facilities, Strano said. The shelter also prevents asylum seekers from winding up on the streets and adding to the state's population of unhoused people, she said.

"The cost savings alone from folks not ending up in the emergency room and instead going through a medical clinic, not ending up at the Greyhound station and ending up as long-term homeless here, that's a huge savings to the entire community," Strano said.

Massive facility helps asylum seekers get ready for more travel

The center opened with just a few old classrooms converted into dormitories capable of housing about 80 people. The 55,000-square-foot building has since been completely renovated into full-scale migrant shelter, as a recent tour showed.

The facility now has the capacity to house 340 people.

It is equipped with a clinic where medical professionals conduct health screenings, provide vaccines and dispense medication.

The building also has showers and sleeping quarters with cots for families and single adults. There is also a baby playroom and a children's playroom stocked with games and toys.

"When you think about the journeys the families have been on, it can take weeks or months to get to this point," Strano said. "They may not have had a lot of spaces where babies and toddlers have had a safe space to crawl or put things in their mouths. … So we want to give them that time to be able to relax and let their baby play in a safe space."

There is also a prayer room to accommodate asylum seekers from various faith traditions, including Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Hinduism.

There are rooms stocked with racks of donated clothing and boxes of shoes sorted by size. Asylum seekers can pick out items to replace the soiled or worn clothing they often arrive wearing. Asylum seekers are also given backpacks and personal hygiene supplies to take with them as they continue their journeys. Volunteers check paperwork, looking for errors and ensuring asylum seekers know when to check in with immigration authorities once they reach their final destinations.

Hot meals prepared in the former school's kitchen are served in a dining hall. The former school cafeteria also doubles as a living space.

On a recent morning, asylum seekers sat together at tables and charged phones. Others waited at a booth where volunteers armed with computers helped book airline tickets, typically paid for by asylum seekers' friends or relatives already in the U.S.

A television monitor looped a video explaining how to navigate the security and boarding process at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. A free shuttle transports asylum seekers there. Staff at the center coordinate with officials at the airport, Strano said.

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Welcome Center persists despite ebbs and flows of asylum seekers

The Welcome Center opened in 2019 amid a lull in the number of asylum seekers arriving at the southern border, raising questions about the center's long-term need.

But the center was created for the long-term, said Aaron Rippenkroeger, executive director of the Phoenix office of the International Rescue Committee. The movement of asylum seekers ebbs and flows, depending on conditions that push people to flee their home countries, and factors that draw them to the U.S., he said.

The center received 8,500 asylum seekers in 2019. In 2020, the number fell to 6,000 after the pandemic forced migrants to stay home and the Trump administration implemented Title 42 border restrictions to quickly expel most asylum seekers.

But the number of asylum seekers released at the center soared to nearly 38,000 in 2021 and more than 49,000 in 2022 amid a record-breaking surge of people fleeing political turmoil, violence and poverty exacerbated by climate change and the pandemic.

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Since May, the number of asylum seekers crossing the southern border has again plummeted, amid several factors, including the roll-out of an app that regulates the number of asylum seekers who can enter the U.S. at ports of entry, stepped-up enforcement by the Mexican government that blocks asylum seekers from reaching the U.S. and a range of new Biden administration policies aimed at deterring asylum seekers.

"It's a roller coaster. It feels like it's always been and it always will be," Rippenkroeger said. "If this center were to close, we could be thrust right back into the same situation we were in before. And that would be terrible."

Daniel Gonzalez covers race, equity and opportunity. Reach the reporter at daniel.gonzalez@arizonarepublic.com or 602-444-8312.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: The Welcome Center in Phoenix streamlines movement of asylum seekers