Monument, Colorado, is a town of about 10,000 around 40 miles south of Denver. It is one of the primary municipalities that make up the Colorado Springs metropolitan area. As with the city of Lakewood, immediately west of Denver, citizens of Monument are opposing having their municipality declared a “sanctuary” for illegal aliens. Yesterday, speaking to Fox News, the mayor of Monument, Mitch LaKind, said:
The goal is to make sure that Denver knows that we will not be accepting any busloads of migrants into our community. The main reason is that we don’t have a budget that matches theirs, and we won’t utilize taxpayer funds for the support of what they’ve decided to take on themselves as a self-declared sanctuary city.
The issue arose from a concern that Denver, which has set limits to the time illegal migrants can remain in city shelters, has begun evicting a wave of illegals. On Monday, about 140 families were evicted and an additional 660 families are slated for eviction over the next few weeks. Denver is encouraging the evicted migrants to leave town by buying them bus tickets. In January, it bought more than 2,000 tickets, sending people to somewhere else in the country, with most going to New York City and Chicago. But news arrived early this week in Monument that some migrants had shown up in Colorado Springs. This sparked a news conference, out of which grew a resolution by the town council reaffirming that Monument is not a migrant sanctuary.
We may need to find out from Denver if they sent them down, and tell them to be prepared to receive them back.
On Tuesday, the council voted unanimously (7-0) to reaffirm its status as a “non-sanctuary.” Mayor LaKind said:
It’s very possible that buses will show up here, but they’re not going to be welcome. The meat of the resolution is to ensure that the taxpayers . . . we are not going to utilize their dollars for the purposes of providing any form of services or shelter to illegal immigrants. We may need to reach back out and find out from Denver if they sent them down, and [tell them to] be prepared to receive them back. The citizens, they’ve made it fairly clear. We hear what they have to say, they’re on social media, they email us, they call us. They don’t want this to be a sanctuary town, so we listen to them. We’re not doing it.
Monument has thus joined Lakewood — and no doubt countless other towns and cities throughout Colorado and the US — in saying No to migrant dumping. And as we say everyday, the answer to that is border protection, a responsiblity the federal government insists it owns but refuses to honor.
For more, see KRDO.com.