More than 42,000 illegal migrants have settled in the city of Denver, Colorado, over the past few Bidenyears, at a cost to taxpayers this year of more than $72 million. That amount takes up the lion’s share of the $90 million allocated for that purpose in the city’s current budget.
But the financial cost of the influx is not the city’s only migrant-related problem and probably not the worst. In particular, District 5 — an area in the east-central part of the city that includes the neighborhoods of Belcaro, Cherry Creek, East Colfax, Hale, Hilltop, Lowry Field, Montclair, Washington Virginia Vale, and Windsor. — has become a “hotspot” for migrant-related crime,
At a July 10 meeting of the council’s Safety, Housing, Education & Homelessness Committee, one District 5 councilwoman said:
We have a hotspot in District 5, and we know that part of that hotspot is related to residents who have been housed in that apartment complex during our migrant crisis.
The apartment complex she cited has been turned into a public shelter as part of recently adopted migrant programs announced by the city. In response to her remarks, the director of the city’s “newcomer” programs, pointed out that to enroll in those programs, migrants must sign a “code of conduct” document, promising “not to engage in criminal behavior.” To the apparent astonishment of virtually everyone in the mile-high utopia, not all the migrants seem to be taking their commitment seriously.
According to the Common Sense Institute, a local research organization, crimes in District 5 increased 46.1% from 4,291 in 2018 to 6,269 in 2022. Crimes in some categories increased far more than that. For example, arrests for Public Disorder were up 102.7 % from 2018 to 2022; Murder was up 116.7%; Aggravated Assault, up 98.2%; Arson, up 113.2%; and Auto Theft, up a whopping 246.8%.
If the councilwoman was correct when she insisted that the “vast, vast majority of people who are entering our programs are fantastic humans,” apparently more than a few fall short of being all that “fantastic.” In fact, the only fantasy going on in Denver is the belief on the part of some purple-haired female politicians that a city can absorb an influx of the size and composition of Denver’s and still remain safe.
For more, see the New York Post.