Over the last year, Denver, Colorado, spent nearly $4.5 million to transport over 12,000 migrants to other states, CBS News reported.
A spreadsheet obtained by the news outlet revealed that Denver purchased plane, bus, and train tickets to relocate migrants to nearly every major city in the nation. The majority of the migrants were sent to Chicago, New York, and Salt Lake City, the document showed. Roughly 1,000 migrants were relocated to Texas and Florida. Others were sent to smaller towns, such as Wilson, North Carolina.
Jon Ewing, a spokesperson for Denver Human Services, told CBS News, “We say, ‘Where do you want to go?’ and then we buy them a ticket, usually by bus, and get them on their way.”
“We feel that it’s the right thing to do to get them to where they actually want to be,” Ewing continued. “If you looked at it in crude financial terms, meaning, if they stayed here for a few weeks and didn’t even want to be here, then we’d be paying to support and shelter them here and they didn’t even want to be here.”
Ewing claimed that Denver relocating migrants to other cities differs from Texas busing migrants out of state, which received criticism from Democratic leaders. Texas Republican Governor Greg Abbott stated that 6,600 asylum-seeking migrants have been bused to Colorado since May.
Ewing said, “The difference is we’re actually asking them where they want to go.” However, the DHS spokesperson noted that Denver, like Texas, is also not informing other cities or states before dropping the migrants off at a new destination.
“There’s just no way for us to coordinate on that scale. It’s just unfeasible. And it’s only for one or two tickets, often, per day,” he claimed.
Over the last five months, Denver has spent roughly $115,000 on plane tickets. Since December, the city has spent $31 million addressing the migrant crisis, Ewing stated.
“We need support here. Denver cannot do this alone,” he added.
A spokesperson for the city’s government told Fox News Digital that individuals who wish to stay in Denver are being provided shelter and support.
“However, we also understand that many individuals arriving in Denver from the southern border have other destinations in mind,” the spokesperson continued. “This is often because they have built-in support systems from family and friends in those cities, or because they believe they will have a better chance at finding work that suits their skills.”
Denver Democratic Mayor Mike Johnston joined fellow Democratic mayors, including Chicago’s Brandon Johnson, Los Angeles’ Karen Bass, Houston’s Sylvester Turner, and New York City’s Eric Adams, to request $5 billion “to cover the expenditures our cities have already incurred” from the migrant crisis “and to continue serving the growing number of people arriving in our communities.”
“The crisis is we have folks here who desperately want to work. And we have employers here who desperately want to hire them. And we have a federal government that’s standing in the way of employers who want to hire employees who want to work,” Johnston stated.
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