In the ongoing game of what we’ve dubbed “migrant hot potato,” the self-described sanctuary city of Denver, Colorado, often the recipient of illegal migrants, has been sending as many as it can elsewhere, anywhere at all.
Including the neighboring state of Utah. A piece yesterday in the University of Utah’s student newspaper, the Daily Utah Chronicle, details how over the past two years Denver officials have shipped 2,000 migrants to Salt Lake City without notifying local authorities. The article quotes a June 14 tweet from Utah Gov. Spencer Cox:
We recently learned that the Democrat mayor of Denver has been sending illegal immigrants to Utah without proper notification or approval. This is completely unacceptable and follows on the failed catch-and-release policy of the Biden administration. Every state has received illegal immigrants and Utah’s resources are completely depleted. All 50 states, including Utah, are now border states due to the failed immigration policies of President Biden and Congress. Once again we call on the Biden administration and Congress to solve this crisis.
Denver’s exports are part of the so-called “Newcomers Playbook,” a 15-step program the city has set up allegedly to “support” the newly arrived. One look at the document, however, betrays the real hope of Denver’s officials: immediate relocation. Consider the fourth step:
Step 4: Offer onward transportation to another destination
As Denver’s government has complained about the offloading of illegals into their city — 42,000 since late 2022 — so now is Salt Lake City’s. The mayor’s office recently released a flyer, in Spanish, urging migrants not to come:
There is no space available in shelters. Food banks and other basic needs services are at capacity. If you do not have a secure and stable connection or family in Utah, consider another state to settle in the US.
Meanwhile, Denver officials say it will continue to provide bus fare and the occasional plane ticket to any migrant ready to decamp, all while insisting it’s got to be the newcomer’s idea:
Again, it’s at their request. We will never encourage anyone to go to Salt Lake City. We will never point a finger at a map and tell someone where they should go.
As long as they go somewhere.
For more, see the Daily Utah Chronicle.