Maine Needed New, Young Residents. African Migrants Began Arriving by the Dozens.
The migrants have been arriving in Portland, Maine, by the dozens. The surge has opened a debate in the city, which needs new residents but also has filled its shelters.
By Kate Taylor
June 23, 2019
PORTLAND, Me. — Through the winter, the families streamed into Portland, bringing stories of violence and persecution in their home countries in central Africa. Portland’s shelter for homeless families soon filled to capacity, so the city put mats on the floor of a Salvation Army gym for 80 more people.
Then that, too, wasn’t enough. This month, 250 migrants from Africa arrived in this northeastern city of roughly 67,000 residents in the span of just a week, overflowing the overflow space and forcing Portland to hastily convert a basketball arena into an emergency shelter. Urgent calls went out for interpreters who could speak French, Portuguese and Lingala, a language spoken in the Democratic Republic of Congo. City Council meetings were given over to grappling with how Portland would pay for all of this — and the possibility that still more migrants might be coming.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/23/us/portland-maine-african-migrants.html
