The encampment, tucked away near an overpass on Union Pacific property in Central Park, had about ninety people living there before being swept, including sixteen children and at least two pregnant women, according to Denver Human Services spokesman Jon Ewing.
Local artist Arthur Infante built the migrant encampment — he even dug trenches and holes for culverts and latrines — after the city had swept an encampment he built downtown. Infante was also gone when the sweep started, but came back to get tents and supplies that migrants had left behind.
Fewer than a dozen migrants, including a handful of children, were still at the encampment when the sweep started on Wednesday. Ewing says that most of the migrants left for other encampments on Tuesday night.
"We had a number of people disperse overnight. That was expected," he says. "Just with the way the energy was going, we thought everybody was going to go overnight, which is a shame."
The city was hoping to get as many people as possible from the encampment into housing, according to Ewing. The migrants who stayed or accepted offers of shelter during city outreach went to Denver Community Church, one of the last congregate migrant shelters, capable of housing 120 people. Ewing says DCC was empty when his team started outreach at the encampment.
The migrants who are being swept are overwhelmed and confused because of all the different information they're hearing, Ewing says.
"They're very confused. I think they've heard a lot of information from a lot of different people," he says. "I think they're a little overwhelmed. They've had a traumatic experience living on the streets, which is why we don't want people living on the streets. We're just trying to give a soft and gentle touch."
A group of city officials and nonprofits came out to help migrants being pushed out of a hidden encampment in Central Park.
Bennito L. Kelty
Infante says the migrants he works with are optimistic despite the sweep, but don't like that the city keeps sending them back to DCC.
"Through all the stuff, they all remain hopeful, but they're all suspicious of the city," he says.
Infante says he's built four migrant encampments and hid them from the city until they were swept. The migrants currently staying at DCC have texted Infante to tell him they're already planning on leaving the shelter, he adds.
"They said the conditions were appalling," Infante says. "People are not going to want to stay with this."
Ewing shot back at Infante's comments, saying "the conditions are not appalling. When I got there this afternoon, we were finishing a deep clean." He adds that Infante's comments are "not productive or helpful."
Three families with kids who went to DCC want to return to the streets, according to Infante. Even though he builds and supports migrant encampments and is critical of city shelter conditions, Infante says he's trying to convince migrants to accept the offers and not sleep on the street.
"The last thing I like doing is setting up a kitchen or campsite. I don't want this job," he says. "I want them to have housing, I want them to find employment, I want them to make a go at this life."
When asked why Infante continues building and running encampments, he says, "Who else is going to fucking feed them?"
Many of the migrants at the Central Park encampment either timed out of the city's shelters or didn't want to stay at them. Infante says that while the city was doing outreach and offering housing ahead of the sweep, migrants "refused to go to the DCC" because of their "past history of how crowded it was when there was the influx of migrants that showed up during winter."
During the winter, as many as 5,000 migrants were packed into city shelters because a long cold snap kept the city from discharging people into the freezing weather. The city is only offering migrants shelter at DCC for now, but it will look at each migrant's situation and decide if they have different housing options, like staying at a converted hotel.
"We have shelter immediately available, and then we'll go through on a case-by-case basis and figure out, does housing makes sense for you, what do you qualify for," Ewing explains. "'Did you come in through CBP One? Can we get you a work permit? Did you come through TPS? Can we get you into a state-backed clinic?' Any kind of resource we can get to help them sustain."
Infante told Westword ahead of the sweep that he plans to build another encampment and hide it from the city again. Ewing says the city will continue to find his encampments and offer shelter to migrants there, but the city isn't interested in playing cat-and-mouse when peoples' well-being is at stake.
"People have the right to change their minds," Ewing says. "But we want to be able to talk to people directly and say, 'This is what we're offering.'"
The three tents that Arthur Infante set up as kitchens in a migrant encampment left an empty space where trash gathered.
Bennito L. Kelty
"They're still talking to us, and it's all very calm," Ewing says. "I do think there are some of them who are interested in going into shelter, because they're still down there. They didn't go last night."
Infante echoes Ewing's thoughts and says that the sweep happened "calmly" despite the challenges with DCC. He adds that he "really appreciates" that police stayed "way back" during the sweep, because he was worried "they might agitate the situation."
The city found out about the encampment on April 22. Along with Union Pacific, city officials gave Infante and migrants at until Monday, May 6, to clear out, according to Union Pacific. Infante secured an additional two days to clear out and pushed the sweep back to May 8.
Infante doesn't work alone, relying on other volunteers from All Souls Denver to help him take care of encampments. He also runs his own organization, My Mother's Kitchen, which brings food, cooking supplies and tents for kitchens to encampments.
Over the weekend, Housekeys Action Network Denver (HAND), a homeless rights group, brought homeless residents to the encampment but caused problems by not bringing water, propane or other supplies and then "hijacked the meaning of this camp," Infante says.
"They put up a Palestinian Flag, which, I'm part of that movement, but it's not the fucking place," he says. "You're hijacking one issue so you can highlight another."
Eager to get away from HAND and start working on a new site, Infante says that he left with a group of migrants to find another spot to camp. It was short-lived, however, because Commerce City Police kicked him out about six hours after they set up, he says.
"We actually moved part of the camp to another spot in Commerce City and had to leave," he says. "We only spent one night at that campsite, so they came back to Central Park, knowing what was going to happen on Wednesday morning."
HAND activists say the group started a new encampment with about sixty people who left the Central Park encampment to avoid the sweep and set up around 56th Avenue and Peña Boulevard. That was quickly swept by the city on May 8, about six hours after Infante's camp was swept, because it was on Denver International Airport property, according to Ewing.
Infante has two other spots for a new encampment in mind, but he wants to take a break.
"I'd like to catch my breath for a day so I'm not worried about how to spend my own money and feeding people and taking propane, water and supplies," he says. "If I could have like a day and catch my breath, that would be wonderful, and I can come up with a plan."
Ewing says that if Infante does build another encampment, the city "will continue outreach," but he believes that Infante is a good person.
"I think Arthur has very good intentions," Ewing says. "We may disagree on the means of some of these things, but I definitely think he cares about these people."
Upwards of 42,000 migrants have come to Denver since December 2022. About half of them are still expected to be somewhere in the metro area, according to the mayor's office.
