'We need more support': Denver, a sanctuary city, overwhelmed by influx of migrants

When asked straight up to spell out her message to Donald Trump and other supporters of his campaign against undocumented mi‐ grants in the U.S., Daniella Crisbel-Burgos got right to the point.

"We are not here to com‐ mit crimes," she said. "We just want somewhere stable to live."

Crisbel-Burgos had spent that morning cooking hot meals on a propane burner inside the tiny camping tent she and her husband then called home, pitched on a sidewalk alongside a giant fairground in downtown Den‐ ver late last month.

A couple dozen other ten‐ ts lined the roadway, all of them occupied by migrants who'd fled strife in Central and South America to claim asylum in the U.S.

She told CBC News she and her husband ran from vi‐ olence and political corrup‐ tion in Venezuela two years ago, finally crossing into America last December. They were then immediately cap‐ tured by U.S. Border Patrol agents and put in a holding cell.

Like so many others who enter Texas that way, they were loaded onto a charter bus and, as directed by Texas Governor Greg Abbott, trans‐ ported north to a so-called sanctuary city, places that welcome and try to protect such migrants from deporta‐ tion or other federal prosecu‐ tion.

In this case, Denver.

But the city has been in‐ undated by migrants, as ille‐ gal border crossings into the U.S. from Mexico spiked to record highs in late 2023 sometimes nearly 10,000 a day - before dropping off slightly in early 2024.

Not least because of the busing program in Texas - it‐ self overwhelmed - Denver, a city of 710,000, has taken in more than 40,000 migrants the past year.

Although about half of them have since moved on, that's the most of any city its size in America.

Denver's response to migrants

On most days now, CrisbelBurgos's husband earns pocket change squeegeecleaning car windows at Den‐ ver intersections while she holds up a handwritten placard begging for money.

"We're not looking for government handouts," she told CBC. "We're only asking for two things: a work permit, and a safe place to be. Noth‐ ing else.

"We came here for a bet‐ ter future."

Despite the city's determi‐ nation to do all it can for mi‐ grants, there are only so many resources to go around, said Jon Ewing, spokesperson for the City of Denver.

As a self-declared sanctu‐ ary city, like New York and Chicago, Denver offers mu‐ nicipal services to help mi‐ grants restart their lives in America.

That has included provid‐ ing immediate food and shel‐ ter (often in temporarily con‐ verted downtown hotels), family counselling, guidance on paperwork for finding a job, lasting accommodation and help navigating the school system.

The city's migrant re‐ sponse has come with a tremendous cost, to date having spent more than $60 million US on it.

WATCH | Denver has taken in roughly 40,000 mi‐ grants:

"There's a huge financial component to this," said Ewing.

"We're staring down a $120-million [US] deficit right now. We're still trying to find cuts [in services] for that, that are as painless as hu‐ manly possible. But it is tough."

Ewing said federal law‐ makers have failed to ease the challenges brought on by the enormous influx of mi‐ grants, and have largely left it up to cities like Denver to struggle through on their own.

"At the end of the day, we need more support, because we can't do this alone."

But while there is strong public support in Denver to continue helping migrants, there's also been pushback over the steep expense to the city, as well as concerns over the health and safety of people like Crisbel-Burgos, who've had to spend time in encampments.

Ewing emphasizes the city will always find proper shel‐ ters for migrants with chil‐ dren, but absent an effective federal response, the chal‐ lenges for Denver remain myriad.

"I think it's going to take a long time [to resolve this]," he said.

"We have a long haul ahead of us."

The fight for the White House

Into this now sits the fight for the White House in Novem‐ ber.

By most polls, roughly a quarter of U.S. voters see im‐ migration as the most impor‐ tant issue in the coming pres‐ idential election.

Former president Donald Trump campaigns on it regu‐ larly as he battles for a return to office. In so doing, under‐ line his critics, he weaponizes fear.

Trump has labelled un‐ documented migrants "ani‐ mals" who are "poisoning the blood" of the country and who bring, as he puts it, "car‐ nage and chaos and killing from all over the world."

WATCH | Trump says some migrants are 'not peo‐ ple' at rally:

The former president omits that broadly speaking, instances of violent crime in the U.S. dropped six per cent last year, despite the surge in migrant crossings.

President Joe Biden coun‐ ters by reminding voters there was a comprehensive legislative plan this year aimed at tackling the border crisis directly. Among other measures, it would have tightened rules on claiming asylum and allowed for the border to, at times, be tem‐ porarily shut down. Both De‐ mocrats and Republicans supported the bill, but in the end Republicans blocked it at the urging - as Biden empha‐ sizes - of Donald Trump.

'Non-sanctuary' Aurora

To be clear, even in Colorado, multiple communities op‐ pose Denver's approach.

Aurora, a city east of Den‐ ver, has explicitly declared it‐ self "non-sanctuary," and makes clear there are no taxfunded municipal services available for migrants who go there.

City Coun. Danielle Jurin‐ sky told CBC that Aurora em‐ braces diversity, but wants no part in cost challenges like Denver's.

"There is no way we can absorb [these migrants] with‐ out greatly impacting our res‐ idents," she said.

Jurinsky supports Trump's view that such migrants should be blocked from the U.S. until their asylum claims can be dealt with, a process that can take years.

And she agrees it's a key issue for voters looking to‐ ward the November election.

"This is going to be a tip‐ ping point.

"Americans are taking this so seriously. They will vote in November with immigration in mind. They absolutely will. And if the Joe Biden adminis‐ tration hasn't realized that now, I think they're in big trouble."

'It becomes less abstrac‐ t'

Back in Denver, volunteer or‐ ganizations have stepped up, while the city struggles to find a way forward.

In a church basement filled with donated clothing, footwear and toiletries, many migrants are also offered guidance on getting settled in the city.

Organizer Jenifer Ketter‐ ing tells CBC News the goal is twofold - to directly help fam‐ ilies in need, but also to send a signal to those who oppose welcoming migrants.

"Our community rose up to something when it was on our doorstep, in our neigh‐ bourhood," she said.

"I think the more neigh‐ bourhoods get that expo‐ sure, it becomes less ab‐ stract. You see [that] their children are just like our chil‐ dren. They need the same things, have the same per‐ sonalities, have the same sense of humour.

"And when you see that, it's just difficult to believe people should just suffer and starve."

But even volunteer ser‐ vices take up time, energy and money. The church do‐ nation centre visited by CBC News was set to soon close. So too was the encampment by the fairground that was housing Crisbel-Burgos and her husband. And even as CBC News met with some freshly landed migrants at a hotel-turned-migrant-shelter, another bus pulled up at the front door with more people.

In the church basement, another Venezuelan browsed through a small box of sec‐ ondhand blankets, sweaters and boots.

"We are humans," Daris Daliz told CBC through a translator.

"We are hard workers. We are honest people."

Then she broke down in tears.