Denver — Mass Immigration and Budget Cuts

NumbersUSA focuses on the long-term sustainability of our country — environmentally, economically, and socially. We are concerned about the harmful impacts high levels of immigration-fueled population growth have on our communities and our country.

Denver, Colorado is a good example of a city whose sustainability and quality of life have been negatively impacted by excessive immigration.  In this case, the problems resulted from the City’s “sanctuary” policies intersecting with the Biden administration’s manufactured migration crisis of 2022-2024. 

Migrant Crisis

During 2022-2024, Denver received about 45,000 illegal immigrants, mostly from Central and South America.  The City spent $95 million on migrant sheltering and services during that time frame, with the Commonsense Institute estimating total spending (K-12 education, health care and city services) of $356 million, or $7900 per migrant.

Migrant tent camp in Denver

In response, in early 2024, the City of Denver asked every department to reduce spending. This included reducing the police budget, closing rec centers, reducing DMV hours, and otherwise cutting services that contribute to the quality of life of Denver residents. 

Regarding the City’s response to the migrant crisis, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston said: “In Denver, we believe that the way to solve these problems is not by turning our back on our American values, but by turning to our American values.” He vowed to shield illegal immigrants from deportation by using local police and 50,000 residents “stationed at the county line.”  “You’d have every one of those Highland moms who came out for the migrants. And you do not want to mess with them,” the mayor said.

Are suburban moms really willing to go to the mat against the federal government to shield illegal immigrants from deportation?  Or are they more aware than the Mayor of the negative consequences of illegal immigration on their schools, health care, public services, and quality of life?

2025 Budget Crisis

Fast forward to August, 2025. Denver faces a new budget shortfall of $50M in fiscal year 2025 and $200M in 2026. There are many causes. But there is no doubt that mass immigration increased city spending. Meanwhile, associated reductions in quality of life, and increases in crime and homelessness, helped reduce tax revenue. Certainly the $95M spent on illegal immigrants would have gone a long way to avoiding this manufactured budget “crisis.”

Laid off Denver public employee

According to a 9News story, Denver’s solution to these new shortfalls will be to institute a furlough program (cutting employees’ pay), eliminate 667 open positions, and lay off 169 employees from across many departments. These include positions focused on child welfare and environmental sustainability. The job cuts are projected to save $100M. What kind of impacts will these cuts have on Denver’s quality of life and economic, environmental and social health?

What will the Future Bring?

In 2024, Donald Trump won election on a platform of getting tough on illegal immigration, promising to secure the border and conduct mass deportations. In response, Colorado Democrats have doubled down on sanctuary policies, both in Denver city policies and in the state legislature. This continues a 15 year trend of increasingly pro-illegal immigration legislation and policies.

The question now is how this situation will resolve itself.  Will Colorado politicians continue to support open borders and sanctuary policies, and will Colorado voters support them? Or will the pendulum swing back toward enforcement of our immigration laws and reasonable immigration numbers? Let’s hope it’s the latter.

In fact, let’s do more than hope! If you live in Colorado, sign up on our action board to contact Senators Bennett and Hickenlooper and your Congressional Representative. Tell them to co-sponsor bills to mandate use of E-verify for all new hires, cutting down on illegal immigration, and bills to reduce legal immigration to numbers that are ecologically and economically sustainable.

If you reside outside Colorado, our action board will put you in touch with your own Senators and Representative, so you can ask them to co-sponsor these good bills. Thanks in advance for your support.

Glenn Colton serves on the Board of Directors for NumbersUSA