Hundreds of asylum-seekers are camped out near Seattle. There's a vacant motel next door

Kabongo Kambila Ringo stood outside the tent where he has been staying with his pregnant wife and ate from a clear plastic tray of Girl Scout cookies melting in the midday sun.

He was one of around 240 asylum-seekers camping in a grassy lot along a highway south of Seattle, wondering if police would follow through on threats to arrest them for trespassing, and hoping officials instead might let them move into the vacant motel next door.

“It's very difficult,” the 29-year-old from Congo told The Associated Press in French. “There's not enough to eat. There's not even a way to wash ourselves.”

The cluster of tarp-covered tents that have covered the field in Kent, a Seattle suburb, since last weekend highlights the strain facing many communities — even some far from the U.S.-Mexico border — as President Joe Biden attempts to restrict asylum and neutralize immigration as a political liability ahead of this fall's election.

Some Democratic-led northern cities have seen huge influxes of migrants. Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has sent more than 40,000 asylum-seekers to Chicago, mostly by bus or plane.

The Seattle area has seen fewer, but with homelessness already an immense challenge — nearly 10,000 people sleep outside in King County every night, officials say — even that has stressed the region's capacity.

More than 2,000 asylum-seekers have come through a suburban church, Riverton Park United Methodist in nearby Tukwila, since 2022 after word got out that it was willing to help. The church has made room for hundreds of migrants to stay every night and has raised money to place families in motels.

Hundreds were moved from tents at the church to hotels or other short-term rentals as extreme cold hit over the winter. But as money