Denver Starts Booting Migrants From Shelters As City Nears 'Breaking Point'
Denver, Colorado is reaching a breaking point as migrant arrivals continue to overwhelm the self-proclaimed sanctuary city.
As a result, Mayor Mike Johnston (D) suggested that the city may stop accepting more, while officials begin the process of booting them from overcrowded shelters.
"I think our city is very close to its breaking point now," he told Fox & Friends last week. And we’ve been talking to leaders in D.C. around the country about why we need them to take action here. I think we have successfully welcomed almost 40,000 migrants in the last year and — and we know what it takes to do this successfully, we just need that help."
Last year the city helped over 38,000 migrants. As of Friday night, 3,895 were staying in city shelters.
"That’s an incredible number of people to shelter, support, feed, help with transportation, deal with case management," said Jon Ewing of Denver Human Services.
According to Johnston, more needs to be done to address the influx of migrants at the southern US border.
"And the things we need are — yes, we need federal dollars, but the most important thing is we need, you know, work authorization for folks when they arrive, and we need those resources at the border so you can add more security at the border and so you can help process those asylum claims so the folks that do arrive here can work," he said.
Perhaps preventing them from entering the country in the first place is the way to go, Mike?
On Friday, Johnson told KOA news that the city is exploring options to pause taking in more people.
"We are considering it. We have to consider all options, particularly if there isn’t any help from the federal government," he said.
Denver is clearing out migrant shelters
According to Fox31, Denver is clearing out shelters used by the migrants.
Starting on Monday, 150 migrants in city shelters will be discharged. Then that number will fluctuate between 50-100 every day until all 3,800 are out of the 10 shelters currently run by the city.
“The hope and goal is that we are able to connect the vast majority with housing, or at least as many of them as we possibly can,” Ewing said.
The number of migrants arriving in Denver is coming down — 48 arrived on Thursday and 64 on Friday, a significant drop from the beginning of January, when that number was 200-300 daily. -Fox31
"4,000 people when you have limited budget, when you have limited resources … very difficult to find enough housing as is, affordable housing as is, in the city of Denver — that’s going to be difficult," said Ewing.
Denver is one of several Democratic strongholds across the United States which pledged maximum virtue by signaling themselves as sanctuary cities - only to be completely unprepared for the surge of migrants that followed the Biden administration's open invitation to them on day one.
New York is facing a similar overload, as Mayor Eric Adams (D) has repeatedly called on the Biden administration to lend a hand in dealing with the migrants. The Big Apple has seen a surge of more than 160,000 asylum seekers since last year.