Migrants descended on a Seattle tennis court. Then an anonymous donor paid for their hotel

The tents appeared on Tuesday evening. Migrants and asylum-seekers from Venezuela, Congo, and Angola set up camp on tennis courts down the street from Seattle’s Garfield High School and slept there overnight.

On Wednesday, more tents popped up on the green concrete. At least 150 people milled about inside the court’s chain link fence.

By Wednesday evening, they were gone. An anonymous donor put up $50,000 to move the migrants to a Quality Inn in Kent, a 30-minute drive south.

King County Councilmember Sara Perry, who helped coordinate the donation and hotel arrangements, told KUOW that the donor was working through a nonprofit but did not want to be identified.

“They are going to house as many people as possible,” Perry said, adding that the donation was enough to move up to 250 people into 61 rooms at a rate of $70 a night – that is, until the money runs out.

Migrants who camped at the tennis courts had previously stayed at the Riverton Park United Methodist Church in Tukwila and later found temporary housing at the Kent Quality Inn. After several months in the hotel, their funding dried up.

On Tuesday, they appealed unsuccessfully to the King County Council for more assistance and had to move out of the hotel rooms.

An employee at the Kent Quality Inn confirmed Wednesday night that a large group of migrants had moved back into the hotel, but couldn’t confirm the precise number of people occupying the rooms.

This group represents just a sliver of the migrant crisis unfolding in western Washington, and across the U.S.

Last December, agents with the U.S. Border Patrol logged close to 250,000 encounters with migrants crossing from Mexico – a record high in a single month.

“This issue is bigger than Seattle,” said City Councilmember Joy Hollingsworth, who represents the district where the migrants camped briefly this week. “We do not have the resources to respond to this level of need.”

Many migrants who have applied for work permits must wait months for approval and, in the meantime, struggle to keep themselves and their families housed. In King County, hundreds are currently camping at the Tukwila church, which has been sheltering migrants for more than a year. Pastor Jan Bolerjack told The Seattle Times that she’s had to turn people away in recent weeks because of overcrowding on the property.

Some migrants in King County have been connected with temporary housing at hotels and short-term rentals, but funding those stays has proved a challenge for local governments, nonprofits and mutual aid groups.

Seattle Mayor Bruce Harrell said through a spokesperson Wednesday evening that returning people to the Quality Inn was merely a temporary solution. He said he had “convened a meeting with regional mayors and King County to discuss next steps with the state.”

In February, a group of protesters disrupted a Seattle City Council meeting to demand more support for migrants in King County. Six people were arrested.

"We get temporary solutions like one week of housing, two more weeks of housing... and then after that, if we don't continue to show up in person, our City Council officials and the King County officials end up ignoring us," Rosario Lopez, a community organizer who works with migrants in King County, told KUOW’s Soundside. Lopez was one of the protesters arrested at Seattle City Hall.

Seattle previously set aside $200,000 for migrant assistance in this year’s Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs budget. At least part of that money has helped to pay for migrants’ hotel rooms in King County.

Last December, a $3 million grant from the King County Council helped move migrants sheltering at the Tukwila church into hotel rooms in Sea-Tac.

King County Executive Dow Constantine announced in February that the county would grant another $1 million to migrant assistance. Councilmember Perry told KUOW on Wednesday that this money had not yet begun to flow.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee signed a new state budget last week that includes more than $30 million in aid for migrants and asylum-seekers. It’s unclear when that money will become available.

Jason Pagano contributed to this report.