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Asylum-seekers spend a night at a Seattle tennis court before heading back to a hotel

caption: Migrants from Venezuela and Angola descended on the tennis courts near the Garfield Community Center in Seattle on April 2, 2024. They stayed one night before an anonymous donor put forth $50,000 to pay for hotel rooms for them to stay at in Kent.
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Migrants from Venezuela and Angola descended on the tennis courts near the Garfield Community Center in Seattle on April 2, 2024. They stayed one night before an anonymous donor put forth $50,000 to pay for hotel rooms for them to stay at in Kent.
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For more than a year, migrants from South America and Africa have been bouncing in and out of motel stays, AirBnBs, and a church parking lot in Tukwila while they wait for more permanent shelter and work permits.

This week, hundreds of families seeking asylum pitched tents and slept on tennis courts outside the Garfield Community Center in Seattle’s Central District, after funding for rooms at the Kent Quality Inn ran dry.

The migrants slept on the courts Tuesday night and planned to stay longer, until an anonymous donor stepped in Wednesday with $50,000 to get them back into hotel rooms.

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

Seattle Times staff reporter on the Project Homeless team Anna Patrick joined Soundside to give us the latest update.

You can listen to the entire conversation with Seattle Times' Anna Patrick by clicking the play button above.

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