Eight months after crossing the border into the United States, Marcy Mora is about to graduate from a culinary training program at Metropolitan State University that she hopes will land her a job in one of Denver’s staff-starved restaurants. 

Mora, who is from Venezuela and traveled to Colorado with her husband and 1-year-old daughter, jumped at the chance to sign up for the city’s six-month asylum-seeker program, which she began in July with classes in English and computer skills. In September, she joined a cohort of new immigrants in a three-month job-training program taught in a gleaming, stainless steel university kitchen. 

Mora, 31, was among 10 people in white aprons and chef hats gathered around a culinary professor holding up a squid, its purplish limbs dangling. As chef Jay Lee, who is an immigrant from Korea and trained at the prestigious Culinary Institute of America, explained how to clean and cut the squid, a translator from Denver’s El Centro de los Trabajadores relayed the information in Spanish. 

The city has enrolled about 850 so far in its asylum-seeker program, including more than 300 who are in the job-training phase. Besides culinary training, the new immigrants can choose career paths in two other industries that are short on workers — construction and child care. 

At the same time, they receive help applying for work authorization, a process that takes about six months. Most immigrants are not eligible for a work permit until their asylum application has been pending for 150 days. For many of those enrolled in the city’s program, including Mora, the clock will stop in January, a month or two after they complete job training. 

Denver “was the best place to go”

Mora heard about the asylum-seeker program while she was living in the Quality Inn, one of seven hotels that Denver was leasing to provide shelter to immigrants during the height of the influx. More than 43,000 immigrants have arrived in the city, mostly on buses from Texas, since December 2022. City officials estimate about half of them moved to other states while the rest stayed to start new lives in Colorado. 

The asylum-seeker program, announced by Mayor Mike Johnston in April, marked a shift in the city’s plans for helping migrants — away from providing temporary shelter and daily meals, and toward long-term assimilation through rent assistance and job training. The “work ready” part of the program, with a budget of about $3 million, is helping only a fraction of the more than 20,000 new immigrants who’ve settled in the metro area in the last two years, however. 

For Mora, the program is helping her dreams fall into place. She hopes to have a work permit and a job in a restaurant by early in the new year. 

“I have an open mind right now,” said Mora, taking a quick break from deveining shrimp and cutting squid. “Wherever I get an opportunity, I want to take advantage of it. Just like everybody here, I’m learning a lot and I know wherever I get a job I’m going to continue to learn.”

A friend from Venezuela arrived in Denver before she did and recommended that she come. “They told me that Denver was a sanctuary city and it was the best place to go and one that would offer a lot of opportunity,” she said in Spanish.  

The city has provided shelter, meals and medical care to about 43,000 migrants. About 8,000 people have received rental assistance through local nonprofits, which received city and state funding. And about 3,500 people have attended the city’s workshops that offer help applying for work authorization. 

The city’s proposed budget for next year includes $12.5 million for the asylum-seeker program, though the program is expected to change as officials determine what is most needed and what parts of the program are most successful. 

For the job training, the city contracted with Centro de los Trabajadores, a nonprofit that for 20 years has helped immigrants understand workers’ rights. The organization is receiving about $2.6 million to provide job training for 565 people through next year. 

Metropolitan State University is providing the culinary training, while immigrants who want to work in construction and child care are attending classes at Centro’s offices and then receiving hands-on training through construction apprenticeships and in child care classrooms. 

“There are good things happening with our immigrant population,” said Mayra Juárez-Denis, executive director of Centro. “We know we’re very concerned about certain aspects of immigration, but I think this is a great example that when the community comes together, they’re here to work. They’re here to have a better life for the children, and they’re putting in the effort. This is a positive and hopeful example of how we can integrate our immigrant population and everyone benefits.”

Program was designed based on which industries need workers

With the recent increase in immigration from South America, Centro refocused its efforts on helping people get jobs, putting its work “on steroids,” she said. The organization interviewed people in the business community, asked labor unions what would encourage them to hire more immigrant workers and looked for partners to help conduct the training. 

Centro created a curriculum that includes information on workers’ rights and computer skills, as well as the differences in work culture between Latin America and the United States. For example, in Mexico it’s acceptable to show up 15 minutes late for work, but in the United States, that’s cause for termination, Juárez-Denis said. In Latin American cultures, people say hi with a hug and a kiss, but in the United States, that’s not how coworkers greet each other.

Centro focused on construction, child care and the restaurant industry because those are three industries that are in desperate need of workers in Colorado, Juárez-Denis said. Immigrants in the job-training cohorts each have a case manager who helps make sure they can make it to class four days each week and through the work authorization process. 

“They have not taken it for granted,” Juárez-Denis said. “They say, ‘I never imagined I was going to be treated with this dignity.’” 

Metropolitan State plans to hold a mini-career fair for the immigrants in its culinary program to connect them with jobs in the restaurant industry. The university will tap into its network of hospitality employers, and offer a resume-writing workshop. 

“We had a very clear mandate from the beginning that it was about seeing through to employment in these high-demand areas, like all the restaurants in Denver screaming out for culinary talent,” said Lynn Minnaert, dean of Metro’s school of hospitality. “The success of this program will be in whether people find jobs, not just whether they complete it.” 

Andres Goenaga, who was a security guard in his home country of Colombia and arrived in Denver in March with his wife and two children, is imagining a future where he wears a chef’s hat at work and shares the beauty and flavor of South American cooking with people in Denver.

“I always wanted to study culinary arts,” he said during his seafood safety class at Metro State. “I love it.”