Something was going wrong.

An error message kept appearing on Anna Bondarenko’s computer screen as she tried to help a family from Venezuela apply for work permits. Every time she hit submit, the system kicked her out of the form.

“I have bad news,” she told Beibin and Naireth, who were applying for themselves and their two daughters, 22 and 17.

Bondarenko on this July day was sitting in the lobby of a former hotel in Tacoma that her nonprofit organization, Spokane-based Thrive International, has turned into a housing complex for more than 300 migrants seeking asylum.

Thrive Center Tacoma marks a year of operation this month. It’s the only known housing complex filled almost entirely with migrants in the state, its residents together navigating a new country and a change in presidentia

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