Colorado’s third-most populous city passed a resolution Monday evening demanding that illegal immigrants, bussed from the U.S.-Mexico border to Denver, not be transported into Aurora.
The resolution, which was approved in a 7-3 vote, maintains the city’s “non-sanctuary” status as Denver continues to grapple with an unprecedented surge of immigrants, a problem that has begun to spill into nearby cities that have fewer financial resources to absorb the sanctuary city’s immigrant influx.
“The City Council affirms remaining a Non-Sanctuary City and asserts the City does not currently have the financial capacity to fund new services related to this crisis and demands that other municipalities and entities do not systematically transport migrants or people experiencing homelessness to the City,” the resolution reads.
Despite most public commenters’ opposition, one of the resolution’s sponsors, Councilwoman Danielle Jurinsky, said that bussing immigrants into Aurora was inhumane and that the city didn’t have the resources to handle the upsurge, the Denver Post reported.
“I don’t know if the Denver residents are OK with their rec centers being scaled back and shut down and their hours cut and the DMV shut down every other week now, but here in Aurora, we’re not shutting down our rec centers,” Jurinsky said. “We’re not doing any of that, and we don’t have a county budget to sustain it.”
Members of the council who also opposed the resolution said at Monday’s meeting it would spread fear and encourage anti-immigrant rhetoric, but Councilwoman Francoise Bergan echoed Jurinsky’s concerns, saying the resolution was about the city’s resource deficiency and not about being unwelcoming.
“We are a welcoming city. We love our immigrant community. This is not about not supporting our immigrant community,” Bergan said. “This is about a crisis that has affected major cities.”
The resolution also called on the federal government to “perform its constitutional duty” to secure the border.
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Last week, Monument, just 40 miles outside of Denver, passed its own resolution to maintain its status as not a sanctuary city. Mesa County, another Colorado municipality, approved a similar resolution that same week. Both city councils cited a lack of financial resources as the reason for their inability to handle Denver’s immigration burden.
Colorado has been struggling with the immigrant crisis, taking in 40,000 illegal immigrants over the last year. Denver officials announced Monday they were considering cutting city employee hours to help address the influx.