Denver’s progressive Democrat Mayor Mike Johnston has drawn national attention for his strong support of President Joe Biden’s policies on illegal immigration. However, as the cost of accommodating migrants skyrockets, critics argue that the city’s homeless population is being neglected.
Johnston recently escalated his rhetoric, pledging to use the Denver Police Department to oppose Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) efforts to enforce Donald Trump’s repatriation policies. However, his stance quickly faltered when newly appointed border czar Tom Homan vowed to confront resistance from sanctuary cities and states to court-ordered deportations.
After initially portraying himself as a staunch opponent of Trump-era immigration enforcement, Johnston faced backlash when Homan pointed out that interfering with ICE’s work is a felony under federal law, warning, “It is a felony to harbor or conceal an illegal alien from ICE. Read the statute. Don’t cross that line.”
The following day, Johnston attempted to temper his remarks, admitting that his previous statements may have conveyed the “wrong image” and sought to revise his stance.
“Would I have taken it back if I could? Yes, I probably wouldn’t have used that image,” Johnston said, according to WKUSA-TV.
“That’s the image I hope we can avoid. What I was trying to say is this is an outcome I hope we can avoid in this country. I think none of us want that.”
Meanwhile, many Denver residents feel neglected as Mayor Johnston directs taxpayer resources toward assisting migrants.
Denver native Tim Rogers, for example, shares his frustration, stating that he has been waiting years for housing assistance while migrants, who he believes shouldn’t even be prioritized, are moved ahead of him in the queue.
“It ain’t fair,” he told ProPublica. “We got guys doing what they’re supposed to do, seeing their case managers and trying to get housing. If they ask to get a pair of shoes they get a big runaround.”
“I’m sorry to say it, I know we’re all human, but to me it ain’t fair,” he continued. “Back in our day, you’d go up to a cop and he’d say, ‘We got a place for you,” meaning jail, Rogers said. “They never threw us on a bus and took us to a motel.”
Residents like Rogers are also in need of employment. However, in June, Johnston’s administration launched a program prioritizing job opportunities for undocumented migrants over local citizens.
“Our goal was to take what people saw as a crisis and turn it into an opportunity,” Denver Mayor Mike Johnston told the media, adding:
We have people arriving in the city who desperately want to work, who have skills and talent and discipline. We have employers in the city who are starving to find employees, and they desperately want to hire them. What we wanted to do was to take those people that are looking to work and connect them to the training and the skills centered on jobs where we have the greatest need. So, what we did is create this first-of-its-kind program in the country, which is this asylum-seeker program.
While many citizens feel overlooked and neglected, Mayor Johnston continues to seek national attention by emphasizing his support for undocumented migrants. Even as he backtracked on his remarks about using the police to oppose Trump’s policies, Johnston boldly stated that he would willingly face arrest for defying the law.
“Yeah, I’m not afraid of that, and I’m also not seeking that,” Johnston told the media. “I think the goal is we want to be able to negotiate with reasonable people how to solve hard problems”:
The Mayor of Denver, Colorado is now saying he is willing to go to jail to protect illegal aliens in his city.
— Joey Mannarino (@JoeyMannarinoUS) November 24, 2024
Imagine if he would care this much about the actual citizens who lived there. pic.twitter.com/fym28rJlHv
Denver has been accommodating migrants crossing the border since December 2022, when the first busload arrived. Since then, Mayor Johnston has allocated over $100 million to provide free housing, healthcare, food, education, clothing, legal aid, and other services for migrants. Projections indicate that the city’s spending on these efforts could exceed $180 million by the end of 2024.
As the number of migrants arriving in the Mile High City increased, so did the costs, leading to a reallocation of resources from residents to migrants. Johnston even redirected funds from essential services, including police and fire departments, to support migrant programs.
This shift in priorities has left many Denver residents feeling abandoned, with some literally left out in the cold.
