KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas City, Missouri, Mayor Quinton Lucas met with community leaders and immigrants living in the Kansas City area on Friday morning.
The discussion focused on issues affecting Kansas City, Missouri’s immigrant community, including undocumented ones.
The biggest topics of conversation were related to housing, legal representation, and mental health.
Immigrants also shared concerns about abusive bosses, who don't pay their salaries because they are in a vulnerable situation.
Della Lamb Resettlement Agency was one of the organizations at the meeting.
"They [the immigrants] just want to work. They want to be able to start building their lives and contributing to Kansas City. We're just here to support them as part of that,” Ryan Hudnall, executive director of Della Lamb, said.
The mayor said he wants to continue meeting with the community.
“Every day we're not making this crisis better, every day we're not improving, or helping someone work through documentation and other issues, is a day that I think we're making someone live in a walk-in prison, frankly,” Lucas said. “When I hear her mother talking about feeling fear when she drops her kids off at school every day, that speaks to me."
He said KCMO is already providing some services to support immigrants, such as the Office of Language Access (OLA) and the Fountain Cards, a city ID that allows undocumented immigrants to access some services.
"We have been waiting for a long time for someone from the government to listen to us,” said Raiza Guevara, who’s originally from Venezuela and now works helping immigrants arriving in Kansas City.
“These are the needs that exist: legal representation, housing, and also mental health, because many of these people come from difficult traumas and have no way of getting any support for their mental health,” Raiza said.
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