The Waiting Room

BELLWETHER, HUMANISTAN

At 7:13 on a Tuesday morning, there were eleven men standing outside the Builders' Gate. By eight there would be thirty. They gathered beside a chain-link fence across from a wholesale plumbing warehouse, drinking coffee from paper cups and watching pickup trucks slow as they approached the curb.

Some trucks stopped. A window came down and there was a short conversation: How many? Two. Concrete? Roof. A pair of men climbed into the back, the truck disappeared, and the others returned to waiting.

There had always been workers at the Builders' Gate. That was why it was called the Builders' Gate, although there was no gate anymore. Twenty years earlier there had been one, when the lot behind the fence belonged to a lumber company. What had changed was the number of people waiting, and the languages, and the city around them.

Bellwether had 640,000 residents at the last census. Then, over eighteen months, approximately 42,000 newcomers arrived from several countries south of Humanistan's border. Nobody had planned for 42,000. Not the mayor or the school district, not the landlords or the construction companies, not the people already living in Bellwether, and certainly not the people who arrived.

“I can show you the apartment”

At 8:40, three kilometers from the Builders' Gate, Mara Venn was unlocking the door of a one-bedroom apartment. She had been a property manager for nineteen years. “This was fourteen hundred two years ago,” she said.

The apartment had gray laminate floors, a narrow kitchen and a bedroom window facing the brick wall of the building next door. It rented now for eighteen fifty. Mara opened the blinds, although there was not much reason to. She managed 63 apartments in four buildings, and until recently an empty apartment might have sat for three weeks. Now she could fill one in three days, sometimes three hours. She had twelve appointments scheduled for this one.

“People will say it's because of the newcomers,” she said. “That's partly true.” Then she pointed out the window. “You see any new apartment buildings?”

I didn't.

“That's the other part.”

Bellwether had added residents much faster than it had added housing, but the shortage had been building for years. Neighborhood groups fought larger buildings. Construction costs rose. Projects waited for permits. Homeowners liked the character of their streets and, although they were less likely to say this part aloud, generally liked what scarcity did to the value of their homes. Then thousands of additional people arrived, and they needed somewhere to sleep.

Some doubled up with relatives. Some rented rooms. Some lived in temporary shelters. Some shared apartments with other families. And some competed for the same inexpensive apartments that working-class Bellwether residents had already been competing for.

Mara had stopped holding open houses because too many people showed up. I asked whether she felt bad raising the rent. “I don't set the market,” she said, then smiled. “I know. That's what everybody says when they're doing well from the market.”

Room 204

At Bellwether Elementary Number 17, Principal Nadia Orrel had turned a teachers' conference room into a classroom. Room 204 still had a sign on the door that said FACULTY COLLABORATION. Inside were fourteen desks.

Seven months earlier, the school district had asked Nadia how many additional students her school could accommodate. She said thirty. They sent eighty-three.

“I was angry,” she said. “At the children?” “No. At everybody who sent them here without sending anything else.”

The distinction was important to her. Nadia's parents had come to Humanistan from another country when she was six, and she remembered sitting in a classroom without understanding the teacher. She also knew what eighty-three additional students meant: more language instruction, more counselors, more lunches, more assessments, more communication with parents who did not speak Humanistani, and classrooms that already had twenty-eight children now holding thirty-one.

“The debate on television is ridiculous,” she said. “One person says they're destroying the schools. Another person says if you complain about resources, you hate immigrants.” She pushed a stack of folders toward the edge of her desk. “I need another teacher. Is that an ideological position?”

During lunch, I met Samir, who was eleven. He had arrived with his mother and younger sister nine months earlier and already spoke excellent Humanistani. When I told him that, he said, “Cartoons.” He had learned much of the language watching television.

He liked the library. What he didn't like was the apartment. Five people lived in a one-bedroom unit, and he slept in the living room. His mother worked evenings cleaning offices downtown. When I asked whether he wanted to stay in Humanistan, he looked surprised by the question. “Yes.” Why? He shrugged. “I'm here.” For an eleven-year-old, this seemed sufficient.

The man who needed six roofers

At 11:20, Anton Vale pulled his truck into a construction site on North Avenue, where three houses were being built on what had once been a single oversized lot. Anton owned Vale Residential and employed 27 people. Nine had arrived in Humanistan within the previous two years. “I could use six more tomorrow,” he said.

Before the recent arrivals, Anton said, finding workers had become one of the hardest parts of his business. Older tradesmen were retiring, and younger Humanistanis seemed less interested in roofing, drywall and concrete work.

That explanation irritated Lio Harven, a roofer I met later. “When a businessman says nobody wants to do the job,” Lio said, “finish the sentence.” What sentence? “Nobody wants to do the job for what he wants to pay.”

Lio was born in Bellwether and had been roofing for seventeen years. He didn't blame the men waiting at the Builders' Gate. “They're trying to feed their families. I'd do the same thing.” But he believed the larger labor supply had weakened his bargaining position. Five years earlier, he said, experienced roofers could demand higher daily rates during busy periods. Now contractors had alternatives.

Anton disagreed. He showed me his payroll and said his average wage had risen, along with his insurance, lumber, equipment, permits and almost everything else. “Ask him if he wants me to build fewer houses,” Anton said. I did. Lio laughed. “No. I want him to pay more.”

There was no dramatic confrontation between them. Anton and Lio actually knew each other, and Lio had worked for him twice. They disagreed about what was happening to the labor market while standing inside one of the houses that labor market was producing. On the second floor, two recent arrivals were installing windows. Down the street, a sign advertised the three unfinished homes: STARTING AT 789,000.

The arithmetic of City Hall

Bellwether's deputy finance director, Celeste Marr, had a spreadsheet. She preferred it to politics. “Everybody wants one number,” she said, turning her monitor toward me. “I can give you twelve.”

New residents paid sales taxes. Some paid income taxes. They paid rent, part of which eventually became property-tax revenue. They bought food and clothing, and businesses employing them paid taxes. That was one side of Celeste's spreadsheet. On the other were shelters, schools, emergency medical care, translation services, additional transit and temporary housing. The city's emergency accommodation program alone had cost 118 million crowns during the previous fiscal year.

“So is this good or bad for the budget?” Celeste gave me the expression finance officials reserve for questions they consider poorly constructed. “Which year?” This year? “Bad.” Ten years? “I don't know.” National government? “Probably different.”

The reason, she said, was that the national government collected taxes the city did not collect while the city operated services the national government did not operate. Bellwether had repeatedly asked for additional reimbursement. The national government had repeatedly pointed to emergency grants it had already provided. Both sides used large numbers, and both said the other side's number was misleading. Celeste's complaint was simpler: “The people making national policy don't have to find a classroom on Monday.”

At the Golden Cup

At three in the afternoon, four men were playing cards at the Golden Cup Café. They had been meeting there most weekdays since retiring from the municipal transit system. The television above the counter was showing Parliament, where immigration was being debated again.

One of the men groaned. “They've been discussing the same thing for three years.” His name was Tomas Enner. He was 71 and had lived in Bellwether his entire life. I asked whether the city was worse now. “Worse?” He considered it. “Different.” Was different bad? “Sometimes.”

He pointed toward the window. Across the street was a grocery store that had recently become a Miranese market. “That used to be Halpern's.” Did he miss Halpern's? “Halpern's was terrible.” The other men laughed.

“So what's the problem?” Tomas rearranged his cards. “I don't know if it's a problem.” He tried again. “You spend your whole life somewhere. You know what things are. Then suddenly you don't.”

His friend Oren interrupted. “You're angry about a grocery store?” “I'm not angry.” “You sound angry.” “I'm explaining something.”

This distinction seemed to matter as much as Nadia's distinction at the school. Tomas didn't think newcomers were bad people. He didn't think Bellwether should close its borders. He didn't particularly want the old grocery store back. What bothered him was the speed. “Give people time,” he said. Time for what? “To catch up.”

There is no municipal department responsible for helping residents catch up emotionally with demographic change. There are no appropriations for familiarity. It is therefore difficult to put Tomas's complaint into a budget, which does not mean it isn't real.

The other side of the counter

The Miranese grocery store across from the Golden Cup was owned by Leva and Beni Saro. They had arrived twelve years earlier, which made them, depending on the conversation, immigrants or locals.

Their daughter Ana was born in Bellwether. She was sixteen and spoke Miranese reluctantly. “My parents make me,” she said. Leva objected from behind the register. “You'll thank me.” “No, I won't.” “You see?” Leva said to me. “Completely Humanistani.”

The store had changed since the newer migration wave. Half its customers were now recent arrivals, and Leva had added products they requested. Business was up 34 percent. Was immigration good for Bellwether? “For me?” She gestured around the crowded store. “Yes.” For Bellwether? She stopped. “My daughter's school is too crowded.” Both answers belonged to the same person.

At Central Precinct

Crime was the subject on which almost everyone claimed certainty. At Bellwether Central Precinct, Commander Rian Moss had less of it. Had crime risen since the newcomers arrived? “Some crimes.” Because of immigration? “I didn't say that.”

The city's population had increased. Downtown shoplifting had risen. Vehicle theft had fallen. Assault was roughly flat. Reports of wage theft had increased sharply. There had also been several highly publicized violent crimes involving recent arrivals, including one murder that became a national political symbol. A photograph of the victim appeared in Parliament during debate over border legislation.

“You can't tell her family that statistics make what happened unimportant,” Moss said. “And you can't tell me one murder gives you a crime rate.” Both statements were obvious. Public debate rarely held them simultaneously.

There was another complication. Some recent immigrants were reluctant to call police. Moss had spent months persuading community organizations that reporting a robbery or assault would not automatically turn the victim into an immigration case. “If reporting goes up because people trust us more, my crime numbers can look worse,” he said. If reporting went down because people feared the police, the numbers could look better.

“So what's the actual crime rate?” He leaned back. “If you figure out how to measure every crime nobody reports, call me.”

The night shift

At 9:40 that evening, Samir's mother, Dalia, was vacuuming the eighteenth floor of a bank headquarters. She cleaned from six in the evening until two in the morning. Her younger daughter stayed with a cousin, and Samir was usually asleep when she returned.

Dalia had been a pharmacy technician before leaving her country. Her credentials were not recognized in Humanistan, and she hoped eventually to qualify again. For now, she cleaned offices. She earned more than she had before coming to Humanistan, but rent consumed nearly half her pay.

Was Humanistan what she expected? “No.” Was it better? She hesitated. “For my children, I think yes.” For her? Another pause. “Ask me later.”

There is a tendency in immigration stories to turn people like Dalia into symbols. She can become evidence of immigrant determination, or exploitation, or pressure on housing, or the willingness of migrants to perform work native-born residents supposedly will not do, or the downward pressure immigration supposedly places on low-wage labor. All of those stories can be placed on top of her.

At 10:15 she was emptying a trash bin beneath the desk of someone who had gone home six hours earlier. Mostly, she looked tired.

The waiting room

The next morning I went to Bellwether's immigration office. The waiting room opened at eight, but by 7:30 the line already extended around the building. People held folders containing birth certificates, employment records, school records, notices from government agencies and documents they had been told never to lose.

Inside, numbers appeared on a screen.

A child slept across three plastic chairs. A man in work boots kept checking the time. A woman cried quietly after leaving Window 12. Nobody seemed to know why.

There were many different ways to enter Humanistan and many different statuses a person could hold after arriving: temporary work permission, permanent residence, humanitarian protection, pending protection, family sponsorship, student status, provisional permission, no valid status. The distinctions mattered enormously to the people in the room. Outside it, they were frequently reduced to one word: migrants.

At Window 5, Eren Valo, an immigration officer, had been working cases for nine years. “People think we decide whether someone gets to stay,” he said. Sometimes they did. Other times he checked documents, scheduled another interview, determined that a case belonged to another agency, or told someone to wait.

How long? He smiled. “That is the national question.”

The backlog had more than doubled. Parliament had changed procedures twice, and the courts had changed them again. More officers had been authorized, but not all had been hired. Eren processed about the same number of cases each day as he had before the surge. There were simply many more cases.

The immigration system had become, in a very literal sense, a waiting room: people waiting for decisions, cities waiting for money, employers waiting for workers, residents waiting for things to settle down, politicians waiting for the next election.

The house on Alder Street

On my final afternoon in Bellwether, I visited June Iver, who lived in the same small house she had bought with her husband in 1988. Her husband died six years ago. June was 78 and had voted for the Border Stability Party in the last election. The party wanted sharply lower immigration.

Her home health aide, Rosalie, had arrived in Humanistan four years earlier. Rosalie came six mornings a week. She helped June shower, prepared lunch, changed the sheets and made sure June took her medication. They argued constantly, mostly about the thermostat.

“You make it tropical,” June said. “You are cold.” “I'm not cold.” “You are wearing two sweaters.” June looked at me. “You see what I put up with?” Rosalie laughed.

June's two children lived in other cities. Without Rosalie, June said, she probably could not remain in her home. Did that affect how she thought about immigration? “No.” Not at all? “Why should it?” Because Rosalie is an immigrant. “I know Rosalie.” She said this as though I had missed something obvious. “I'm talking about the numbers.”

Rosalie was listening from the kitchen. “You want them to stop me at the border now?” “You're already here.” “Very convenient.” June smiled. This was apparently an old argument.

Then she became serious. “A country has to decide how many people it can take.” Rosalie came into the room carrying tea. “And who decides which people?” “The government.” “You complain about the government every day.” “That's different.” Rosalie handed her the tea. June took it.

There was the immigration argument in miniature: a general rule and a particular person, a national number and a human relationship. Neither erased the other.

What Bellwether gained—and what it paid

It would be possible to leave Bellwether and write a story about a city transformed for the better. New businesses had opened. Restaurants that did not exist three years earlier were crowded. Construction companies had workers. Empty storefronts had reopened. The population was younger. Schoolchildren were learning one another's languages. Employers who had complained for years about labor shortages were hiring. Dalia's children were safe. Samir loved the library. Leva's grocery business was booming. Anton was building houses. June was still living at home.

All of that was true.

It would be equally possible to write the opposite story. Rents had risen. Shelters were expensive. Classrooms were crowded. The immigration office was overwhelmed. Some workers believed their bargaining power had weakened. Residents like Tomas felt their neighborhoods changing faster than they wanted. The city government was spending money it had not expected to spend. Dalia lived with five people in a one-bedroom apartment and cleaned offices at night despite having worked in a pharmacy before she arrived.

All of that was true too. The mistake would be assuming that one list cancels the other.

The argument at the bus stop

Before leaving Bellwether, I returned to the Builders' Gate. It was raining, and only nine workers were waiting. Across the street, two people were arguing at a bus stop.

One was Lio, the roofer I had met earlier. The other was a younger man named Mateo, who had arrived fourteen months ago. They knew each other from job sites. I couldn't hear how the argument started. By the time I approached, they were discussing wages.

“You take one-twenty,” Lio said. Mateo shook his head. “One-fifty.” “You told me one-twenty.” “Before.” “So now you're expensive?” Mateo smiled. “Humanistani.” Lio laughed despite himself.

The bus arrived, but neither man boarded it because a contractor had pulled over at the curb. He needed two roofers. Lio asked the rate. The contractor answered. Lio looked at Mateo, and Mateo looked at Lio. “One-seventy-five,” Lio said. The contractor objected. Mateo started walking away. The contractor called him back. They settled on one-sixty. Both men climbed into the truck.

For one morning, at least, the labor market had reached a conclusion. Bellwether had not.

People often spoke about the city's immigration debate as though one side eventually had to be proved right. Perhaps that was the wrong expectation. Bellwether had become richer in some ways and more strained in others. Some residents had gained from changes that imposed costs on their neighbors. Some people who wanted less immigration depended intimately on immigrants. Some newcomers who benefited from being admitted were now competing with people who had arrived before them.

The city was not experiencing an average. Nobody does. People experience the apartment they can no longer afford, the employee they could finally hire, the crowded classroom, the business with twice as many customers, the violent crime that happened to someone they love, the crime that never happened, the neighborhood they barely recognize, the daughter who speaks the new language better than the old one, or the woman who helps them out of bed in the morning.

National statistics can tell us whether these experiences are common and how large their effects appear to be. They cannot combine them into a single human experience called what immigration did to Bellwether.

At the Builders' Gate, another pickup slowed. Three men stepped toward the curb. The driver held up two fingers. Two climbed in. The third went back to waiting.