Denver (CO), January 2 The state of Colorado stopped busing recently arrived immigrants by bus to New York and Chicago beginning Monday, despite the fact that dozens of asylum seekers arrive each day, which has overwhelmed the capacity of care services in its primary city, Denver. .
Governor Jared Polis said in a statement that Colorado has been “assisting the city of Denver” since the beginning of the year for new immigrants “to reach their desired final destination” which, in about 1,600 cases, meant traveling to New York or Chicago .
However, at the request of Mayors Eric Adams (New York) and Lori Lightfoot (Chicago) that Denver stop transporting immigrants to those cities, and despite the fact that Denver has not received federal funds to help these people with housing, food and medical services , Polis has ordered the suppression of this transport service.
“We refuse to detain people against their will if they want to go to another place,” the president warned.
“While the federal government and Congress have sadly failed the American people on immigration reform and border security, Colorado continues to provide culturally competent and humane support to help migrants escape oppression,” he added.
The governor’s office said Polis, Adams and Lightfoot had “a productive conversation” that resulted in a decision that Denver would no longer charter buses to transport immigrants. For this reason, the last bus with new immigrants (mostly Venezuelans) arrived in New York from Denver this Sunday.
Official data from the Denver mayor’s office indicates that about 4,000 immigrants have arrived in that city in the past four weeks, with the local municipality spending more than $1.5 million to provide them with needed assistance. At the same time, over 70% of these people indicated that Denver was not their final destination.
Separately, Polis’s office noted that immigrants sent by bus to New York and Chicago had already made their way to those cities on their own, but that the government decided to step in when those plans were thwarted “by adverse weather and lack of personnel” which caused “the cancellations of the trips of many migrants”.
For comparison, Chicago has received approximately 3,900 immigrants in the past four months, while New York has received more than 36,000 immigrants in the past nine months. According to Mayor Adams, the city of him will spend about a billion dollars during 2023 to address the needs of these people.
For his part, Polis reiterated this Monday his request to President Joe Biden to promote the passage of laws that, at the federal level, allow “the creation of work permits for immigrants”, as well as “better border security” , the ultimate goal being “a reform of immigration”. EFE
FM/AMV
