Mark Berzins has a devil of a time finding enough kitchen staff for his 17 bars and restaurants in the Denver area. 

The metropolis has an unemployment rate slightly below the national average and a highly educated populace that shies away from manual labor. While some employers might be able to lure foreign workers through the H1-B visa program, that isn’t an option for cooks and dishwashers.

So instead, Berzins is tapping into a city program to hire asylum seekers — primarily from South and Central America — who have obtained federal work permits. So far, he’s given jobs to about a dozen people at kitchens where the managers speak Spanish. 

“It’s really gotten so bad that almost all of these kitchens around Denver are chronically understaffed,” he said. “They try to make college a priority for graduates of Denver public schools. When that happens, those are not your cooks of the future.”

Denver’s program and similar efforts in places ranging from New York to North Dakota […]