The hidden backbone of Steamboat Springs: Immigrants

Like many resort towns, Steamboat is dealing with issues filling job starting-level positions with high rents in town. One of the major fixes, according to residents, has been the steady flow of immigrants coming into Colorado, looking for opportunities and hoping to build a better life for themselves and their families. 

With the federal government's immigration program DACA now declared illegal it creates a difficult situation for many of the people Integrated Community have been hoping to help. 

Steamboat Springs is home of Integrated Community, a non-profit intended to help people immigrating into the U.S., as well as non-English speaking folks. Renzo Walton, an immigration services specialist helps people going through immigration understand the paperwork, translates and guides to the best of his ability the complex path to a new life for these folks.

Issues with DACA have caused fear and stress for a lot of their clients. 

"It worries me," Walton said. "I have a lot of clients back in the day try to kill themselves when DACA was gone for a while...a lot of kids drop school when they were not able to get into the program, right now we can only send renewals for DECA, we cannot send new applications."

"I have a list of 35 kids (waiting)...they are not kids anymore; they are young adults."

Still, there have been several success stories from the group, which started out serving 50 people in 2004 all the way to 2121 people last year. The non-profit's director Nely Navarro said they've become an essential stepping stone to life in Steamboat for immigrants from all over. 

"Adjusting to a new culture, you know, understanding new systems... we often have clients coming here, you know, telling us that they want to enroll their kids in school, but they don't know how to start, where to start, what documents do they need?"

Navarro went on to describe how isolating and confusing it can be to come to a new home without knowing a language, something she feels especially qualified to help people with after her own successful immigration to the U.S. It's why she's worked so hard to help people like Karim Rachad, who's living in steamboat with his wife after coming here from Argentina.

"Sometimes you think that you're in the middle of nowhere, you know, but at the same time, they are here to help you all the time, so they're really nice," Rachad said. 

He's now working with an insurance company and said he's seen the benefit of mixing cultures between the mountain town and his own.

"They have cowboys skiing here, I love it," he said laughing. 

That dedicated immigrant story stretches across the economy in town. Both Yampa Valley Bank and Young Tracks Childcare center cannot say enough about their employees, who have gone or are going through the DACA program right now. 

"Frankly, we should be grateful. They're hardworking, they're loyal. And we've been really blessed to be able to have them in our community," P.J. Wharton, CEO Yampa Valley Bank said Wednesday.

"The Spanish-speaking population is coming to us because they trust her... she also has helped us to she's helped us with recruiting other Spanish speakers."

Kim Martin's Young Tracks center said you can't find a part of town that isn't leaning on the support of immigrants.

"This community would be crippled," Martin said. "Absolutely. I mean, we have folks from all over the world here in Steamboat,"

One of her own employees had to stop working while she renewed her DACA status...and that took a teacher away from kids, and dropped the amount of childcare in the Yampa Valley when there was already a crisis. 

"So, to have another person who was physically able to work but couldn't be here and be on the payroll was just it was somewhat catastrophic," Martin said. She added the bilingual aspect some of her immigrant teachers are able to bring helps support a diverse community.

While the recent ruling on DACA is discouraging for Integrated Community, it is still looking to expand to help people new to Colorado and has its eyes on Moffit County where they are seeing a large need for service.