Times-Call (Longmont)

The question for Colorado communitie­s: to help, or not?

- By John Aguilar jaguilar@denverpost.com

They came by the hundreds, crowding into a fourth-floor room in a nondescrip­t office building in Lakewood — their message loud and earnest.

“We do not want to be Denver,” former Councilwom­an Mary Janssen told the gathering. “I live in Lakewood. When did we decide to give away our immigratio­n laws?”

Last week’s hastily arranged meeting in an office park near the Colorado Mills shopping center was the latest convulsion amid an ongoing and unpreceden­ted migrant crisis in neighborin­g Denver, where nearly 40,000 new arrivals to the city have been processed over the last 13 months at a cost of more than $42 million.

The massive surge at the U.S. southern border has forced Colorado communitie­s beyond Denver to respond to the crisis, too, as migrants leave the Mile High City to join family members or seek job opportunit­ies across the state.

Some places have been more welcoming than others.

In Carbondale, dozens of Venezuelan migrants arrived suddenly in town last fall and were given shelter in public buildings after families were found sleeping under a bridge. Fort Collins has welcomed migrants from 32 countries in recent years, prompting its elected leaders to establish an Immigratio­n Legal Fund to help the newcomers with asylum cases, acquiring work permits and handling deportatio­n hearings.

The fund was launched in the summer of 2021 as a $150,000 pilot program, said Leo Escalante, a liaison in Fort Collins’ Neighborho­od Services Department. The City Council renewed it through the end of this year with another $500,000 injection.

“This has to be a shared responsibi­lity to help our immigrant communitie­s among as many communitie­s as possible,” he said.

But not all communitie­s in Colorado see it that way.

In October, the Adams County Health Department held a special meeting to discuss Denver’s decision — later reversed — to house migrants in an Adams County hotel with little warning. The department said any migrant shelters need to meet health and safety standards to minimize the risk of the spread of infectious diseases.

That same month, Douglas County commission­ers passed a resolution saying the county would not serve as a “sheltering solution” for migrants from Denver. On Jan. 31, El Paso County followed suit.

“El Paso County will not be designated as a sanctuary county,” county spokeswoma­n Natalie Sosa told The Denver Post. “We support immigratio­n laws and we believe in the rule of law and will work to keep our community safe by not inviting individual­s who are not here legally.”

Closer to Denver, a rumor in late December that migrants would be sent from the city to a Wheat Ridge hotel prompted a group of residents to gather together at an emergency meeting. Denver denied any plans to send migrants to Wheat Ridge, according to a Fox31 report.

As the new year dawned, the Lakewood City Council agreed to talk to Denver about how Colorado’s fifth-largest city could help its neighbor with its migrant challenge. The council will receive a report on those discussion­s at its meeting Monday, which is expected to draw a large turnout.

“I think it’s obvious, wherever you sit on the political divide on this, that we’re reaching a point where this can’t just be a Denver-only issue,” Lakewood Councilman Roger Low said at a Jan. 8 meeting. “Being a good neighbor means that if you notice that your neighbor is having an emergency you don’t shut the door, you don’t turn out the lights, you don’t just hide under the pillow and hope it’s all going to go away.

“You go out and ask, ‘How can I help?’”

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