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