Denver Could Spend $180 Million on Illegal Immigration Crisis in 2024: Mayor

A U.S. Border Patrol agent watches as illegal immigrants from Texas step off a bus in San Diego, Calif., on Oct. 10, 2023. Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images

The City of Denver in Colorado may have to spend an estimated $180 million on the illegal immigration crisis in 2024 if the influx of illegal immigrants continues, Mayor Mike Johnston has said.

Mr. Johnston revealed the estimated cost during the weekly mayor-council meeting on Jan. 2, referring to the new arrivals as “newcomer migrants.”

The Democrat said the multimillion-dollar expenditure would represent roughly 10 to 15 percent of the entire general fund budget for the year.

“That would be a very, very painful conversation about budget options if we had to figure that out,” Mr. Johnston told councilmembers. “This challenge is far larger than we’ve ever seen it before, and the scale can feel overwhelming.”

In December, Mr. Johnston said Denver had spent $36 million helping more than 34,000 illegal immigrants in the past year alone—including setting up emergency shelters and renting out hotel rooms to accommodate the arrivals—and warned that figure could quadruple in 2024, ABC7 in Denver reported.

At the time, the mayor urged the Biden administration to increase federal funding to the city, which is already battling a growing homelessness crisis.

“If there is no federal support, there’s no coordinate entry, there’s no work authorization, then I think cities would have to look at dramatically reducing the amount of services we offered or dramatically cutting our city budgets, which has impacts on other parts of city services,” the mayor said.

Immigrant Influx ‘Unsustainable’

The city has already received $3.5 million in funding from the state government to support sheltering operations, along with $1.6 million from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, CBS News reports.

The federal government has also vowed to reimburse Denver up to $9 million.

However, during the Jan. 2 council meeting, Mr. Johnston said roughly 250 new illegal immigrants are arriving in the city every day, adding that Denver has received more immigrants per capita than any other city in the country.

“We are the closest, cheapest bus ticket from El Paso,” he said. “It’s the cheapest ticket for [Texas] Gov. [Greg] Abbott and anyone else to buy, so they just come to Denver. We think that is unsustainable for this city.”

According to a Dec. 29 notice from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s office, Texas has so far transported 13,800 illegal immigrants to Denver by bus as part of the state’s “Operation Lone Star,” aimed at relieving the burden of illegal immigration on southern border towns.

Mr. Abbott has said Texas’ busing operation aims to “fill the dangerous gaps created by the Biden Administration’s refusal to secure the border.”

“Every individual who is apprehended or arrested and every ounce of drugs seized would have otherwise made their way into communities across Texas and the nation due to President Joe Biden’s open border policies,” he said in December.

New York City Files Lawsuit

On Jan. 4, New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced the city had filed a multimillion-dollar lawsuit against charter bus companies transporting illegal immigrants to the city, arguing the firms had “knowingly implemented Governor Abbott’s publicly articulated plan” to bus immigrants to the city “without any regard for the individuals they were transporting or an effort to help manage this humanitarian crisis.”

New York Mayor Eric Adams speaks during his weekly press conference at New York City Hall on Nov. 14, 2023. Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images

Mr. Abbott has denounced what he called the “baseless” claims in the lawsuit and said the Democrat mayor will “be held legally accountable for his violations” if he persists with the legal challenge.

Speaking to ABC for the afternoon news program “GMA3” on Thursday, Mr. Johnston said it should not be up to Mr. Abbott to decide where in the United States the immigrants are sent, and that instead, cities and states should be able to accept the influx based on their capacity to do so.

The Democrat noted a similar plan was put in place for migrants from Ukraine and Afghanistan.

“We’re working on bringing cities together to have a similar structure so we don’t just have the governor of one state deciding where everyone is sent,” he said. “We think if we did that, we could be much more successful.”