Denver, Colorado, has absorbed more than 40,000 illegal migrants since 2022, pushing it to the “breaking point with the weight of the costs of delivering free housing, free medical care, free legal advice, free education for their children, and other things to migrants.” So far, the city has spent $42 million, and the New York Times estimates costs for 2024 may reach more than $180 million. Only about $9 million has been offered by the federal government, which city officials say is way too little. Denver mayor Mike Johnston, a Democrat, has said the city will have to cut back on services to make up the difference. At a February 9 press conference, he said:
We are going to have to make changes to what we can do in terms of our city budget and what we can do in terms of support for newcomers who have arrived in the city. We want to continue to be a city that does not have women and children out on the street in tents in 20-degree weather. And we also want to provide all our constituents with the services they deserve and the services that they expect. This is a plan for shared sacrifice.
Johnston mentioned cuts to both the city’s DMV and Parks and Recreation services, with $5 million being cut from the two. He indicated that these were only the first two steps and that other, more severe, cuts would follow, including cuts to the police department and the animal shelter. The city of Denver is clearly at its own breaking point.
Just west of Denver is Lakewood, a self-governing municipality that constitutes one of the principal municipalities in the overall metropolitan area. Lakewood residents are trying desperately to avoid the fate of its close neighbor. On Monday of this week, they packed a city council meeting demanding that officials prevent the “mess that is swamping Denver,” according to Colorado Public Radio. Amid signs reading “Don’t Denver Our Lakewood” and “No to Sanctuary City,” one resident said: “What you see tonight is informed voters who have watched Denver’s decline, and don’t want the same here.” A former Lakewood city councilwoman, who helped organize the meeting, said, “This community cannot afford this.” And another attendee said, “It’s not that we are not a compassionate community. We are. But we cannot care for the world.”
The angry citizens were responding to a report that a 100-bed homeless center was slated for construction in the city. They were concerned that its use by illegal migrants would add Lakewood to the growing list of munipalities being brought to the breaking point by the migrant crisis. The meeting lasted seven hours, but, at the end, the City Council voted 10 to 1 to accept the plan to build the center.
Breaking point here they come.
For more, see Breitbart News.