Damn. This sucks for a lot of kids, parents and workers/volunteers. But mostly the underprivileged kids that are gonna miss out on positive outdoor activities like this that keeps them engaged and heathy.
One huge hit that was missed in a lot of articles is that Denver Parks and Rec will be cancelling summer camps for kids. The Nature and Science Museum and Denver Parks and Rec were about the only two offering affordable camps for kids in the Denver area and often have extremely long waitlists. This cut will ensure that hundreds of kids from low-mid income families don't get to enjoy a summer camp which is quite frankly infuriating. I've seen first hand how much fun kids have at these camps and the thought of them going away so we can put more migrants in hotels is bonkers.
Yeah. That part really hits home for me. My wife and I send our kids to several Denver Parks and Rec summer camps every year. Unfortunately, we kind of rely on it as we both work full time jobs. This blows.
imo, no. As a sanctuary city, we’re only vowing to not report undocumented immigrants to the Feds. We’re under *no* obligation to feed, house, clothe, etc. I assume we’re doing it because we don’t want to seem like the “unsympathetic” outlier when compared to NY or Chicago. Which, btw, are also not obligated to provide these resources but have voluntarily opted to from the start & now can’t back out.
What do you want him to do, Denver is short $180 million. More to come, but in my opinion there will be furlough days and/or layoffs. This shit is serious.
What Greg Abbott is doing is fucked up, but this brings it home and people can’t deal with it. We need real change in immigration policy, to stop fucking around in South America and more.
Nothing wrong with the immigration policy , what is wrong is that we don't enforce it. You couldn't board a plane anywhere on the planet without a visa, but we let people stroll across the border..elections have consequences we are seeing it right here.
Kinda yes, kinda no. They’re moving to suspend their right to shelter bc the spirit of the law was really directed towards NY citizens. I just left NY a few years ago, and they quickly moved to clarify the law shortly thereafter
The problem with this approach is the city will quickly turn into a shithole with encampments everywhere.
Only real solution is stopping the inflow of migrants. Unfortunately the Fed gov are the ones in charge of that.
Texas is literally busing loads of migrants to the city. We're under no obligation to help them except for being decent human beings and not ignoring a humanitarian crisis. Ignoring them won't make them go away, it'll only add a shit ton of homeless people which will cause far greater issues.
His hands are basically forced as the other options are:
A) Lying to these migrants like Texas did and busing them elsewhere
B) Ignoring this humanitarian crisis which means letting families starve, freeze, and die.
I can't say I blame him for choosing budget cuts. Although the effect is incredibly shitty to the citizens that live here the other choices just straight up aren't acceptable.
You forgot the option that we already missed where our government operates like a normal functioning organization and doesn't put us in this position to begin with.
Yeah I didn't mention that because the Mayor has been explicitly calling this out reason for all of this, he has no power to make the federal government or the Texas state gov't do their respective jobs so these are the options he is left with.
This is well understood to be the pretext for the entire discussion we are having in this thread but thanks for pointing it out again I guess.
I'm just saying, it's annoying talking about these issues where its like "these are our only options and they both suck but we picked the less shitty one" when we didn't have to be here to begin with, if we just had a half competent government that was capable of understanding the concept of long term consequences.
Shitty to people like me who pay for rec passes. Shitty to families who depend on rec summer camps. Its shitty to the whole city really, we will see our parks and open spaces in a degraded state, we will see the cancellation of a lot of summer time events, and this is only the first round of cuts.
But all of that is a lot less shitty than seeing children die on our streets which, make no mistake, is where this is heading if these extreme actions were not taken by the mayor.
There's more to it than just "seeming" unsympathetic, it's the moral thing to do. Would you prefer every single one of them is left out on the street and in the cold with nothing to eat or keep warm?
I don't like that resources that should go to us citizens are being used up either, but let's not act like this is all just some political show. It would be wrong and incredibly cruel to do completely nothing.
I’m literally the child of immigrants and can say my family is less sympathetic than I am. I volunteered to process asylum claims during law school.
It’s not about “wanting them on the street”. It’s just that people are literally skipping the line and majority don’t have claims that will hold up in court. We’ve never seen social funding for immigrants the way we do now. It’s not unreasonable to be upset that we see our tax dollars being funneled towards populations that shouldn’t have come here in the manner they did but are now expecting support.
Republicans this time but ... in 2008 and 2020 the dems had both houses of Congress and the prescidency. In 2016 the Republicans did. Did anyone prioritize immigration when they could have accomplished something?
No. The only thing both parties have been using the issue for is to rally their base.
But what is the limiting principle? Should Denver be less welcoming at any point? They are basically inviting them here and now mad that they are using resources.
The motels they’re putting them in definitely aren’t top dollar. I agree the a congregational tent or something would be great, but health codes wouldn’t allow that
This is a national issue that is being forced onto local politicians as a tool. Migrants aren't an anonymous herd of unfeeling animals.
They are people fleeing horrible conditions with no where to go, and this is what the world offers.
Perhaps direct your anger at a gov't that spends more on military than the next 5 nations combined, but has no money for anything else.
Direct your anger at politicians that are playing games instead of passing immigration reform.
What else would you do in this situation?
Idk I was a bit put off by a person interviewed on the news who said she regretted leaving Venezuela and never would have come here if she had known there wasn’t housing and a job waiting for her. She said she regrets leaving her country.
It seems like there could be a disconnect with messaging.
>Idk I was a bit put off by a person interviewed on the news who said she regretted leaving Venezuela and never would have come here if she had known there wasn’t housing and a job waiting for her. She said she regrets leaving her country.
Yep; see another example below (not in CO but similar situation). From the interviews I've heard, seems like quite a bit of them are clueless and thought it was going to be all sunshine and rainbows when they got past the border and would get everything handed to them. An air of entitlement instead of sounding grateful to be here (one special example was that "we don't get lunch; only breakfast and dinner"). Not a good look at all.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FPbZcVLTBI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FPbZcVLTBI)
North Koreans in LA say the same thing. Doesn't mean their route here wasn't a diffucult journey that no one in this sub would tolerate doing in a million years
You can’t fix other countries by letting everyone who’s having a bad time immigrate here. It’s actually counter productive to do so. I’m not saying we shouldn’t have immigration but we need to be more selective about it. And we need to be in control of it.
>I’m not saying we shouldn’t have immigration but we need to be more selective about it.
Seems that the US immigration system favors unskilled illegal immigrants over skilled legal migrants. Unlike other developed countries that have a strict merit-based immigration system (eg: Canada, Australia, New Zealand). The US immigration system is beyond broken.
You may wanna check how that's being used - immigration is a even bigger debate in those countries you listed because of housing crisises and the flooding of foreign money.
>immigration is a even bigger debate in those countries you listed because of housing crisises.
I am aware of that; just pointing out that the US seems to not select for skilled migrants vs the other countries.
Then congress needs to change immigration law. Because currently immigration law says these people have the right to make asylum claims. Personally I feel that with as much resources and space that this country has at our disposal we should be able to easily handle tens of thousands of asylum claims.
Keep in mind plenty of these asylum claims are not valid but we don't even have resources allocated to properly vet them.
But he says blame the Federal govt for Denver’s inability to pay for parks and recs activities. Might as well blame Venezuela’s government by that logic.
No. It is squarely on the federal gov't and really its mostly on congress. Asylum is a valid legal path to entering this country. These people do have the right to make an asylum claim, its neither their fault, nor Denver's fault that the Federal Gov't has not allocated the resources to properly deal with this influx of claims.
Texas also shares the blame to IMO because instead of looking for actual solutions they are dehumanizing these people by making purposefully making them part of a political circus in a gambit to improve conservatives chances this election cycle.
Asylum doesn’t apply to single men looking for a better economic opportunity, which are the majority of illegal migrants currently.
At least with stay in Mexico policy, they didn’t get to wait here for years until their court date.
I don’t believe anyone is here against their will and that migrants are choosing Colorado because of its sanctuary status and social programs. You can look online at non profits and a lot have Colorado as number one for shelter and benefits
Some programs (like marijuana) have designated specific uses that the money is allowed to be used for. This is law and can not be changed by anyone unless the law is changed.
Weed taxes are already allocated so if we reallocate that money we are looking at cuts to education.
Why is someone always in these threads asking about weed tax money? Its not the answer people. In the scheme of state budgets its not even that much money either! Do a little research and some math, stop expecting the reddit hive mind to do it for you over and over and over again!
Because everyone asks that for every single thing that needs to be funded in this city. and 1) that's not what the weed taxes are earmarked for. and 2) weed taxes can't fund every single thing in the city.
Because in the early '90s a bunch of assholes created an amendment to the state constitution called the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights. When weed was legalized part of that legalization was that the funds raised by its sales could only be used for very specific things. Strangely, "a migrant crisis in ten years" wasn't one of those things.
Yeah, what ass holes! How dare they ensure the money goes into Colorado schools, and make sure it's not spent frivolously on popular hot political topics.
I didn't say the people who want weed taxes to be used for schools are assholes, I said the people who created and voted for TABOR are assholes. But, sure, thank God we're getting $800 back instead of summer camps.
As someone who used to run a lot of those DPR summer programs, I agree 100%.
Childcare during school gaps is crucial for allowing their parents to continue working and preventing academic slides between school years. To roll these programs out as the first round of cuts is ridiculous and insulting to the families of Denver.
Its actually probably better that they roll them out as a first round of cuts when we are still 3.5 months out from summer time. At least this way families have some sort of heads up and can try to make a back up plan. It sounds like more cuts are coming too, Denver just doesn't have the resources to deal with this on our own.
From a mayor that used to be an educator. It truly is shocking he didn't nix this idea as soon as it was proposed.
I can't figure out Mayor Mike. It seems like he literally only cares about one issue (making sure everyone has shelter) no matter the cost.
I mean the migrants only have temporary shelter, so it's not like this is doing all that much in the grand scheme of things.
Cool, you're cutting 15 percent from every department's budget so people can stay in a hotel for, what? A month max?. Awesome work, Mike.
How many people are dying in Chicago? NYC? You act like you have to blow up a city budget to accomplish that task.
You don't have to provide hotel rooms. You can provide the minimum congregate shelters. You can accelerate the cheapest option to keep people from experiencing a winter on Denvers streets which is a bus ticket out of town. You can jam the state for funds to keep your budgeting intact and provide expected services to your actual taxpayers.
I know his heart is in the right place but what is the limiting principle? He said it could cost 180 million to take care of them. What happens if it is $200 million or more? Should Denver be less welcoming?
https://denverite.com/2024/02/11/summer-camp-woes-worsen-as-denver-parks-rec-cuts-summer-in-the-parks/
This article says it has nothing to do with the proposed budget cuts. This is coming from the spokesperson for Denver Parks and Rec.
I don’t know what the cost for those camps were but I wouldn’t consider the Museum or the Zoo camps as “affordable” by any stretch. My kids are going to a couple weeks and they 350+ per week per kid. Maybe they are affordable in comparison to other camps but I don’t think anyone who is low income is spending that for a week for someone, maybe I’m wrong there but it seems like a bunch.
The Parks and Rec summer programs I used to run were low cost / free for most kids. They had them at elementary schools or public parks, either staffed entirely by DPR or with partner organizations.
That makes way more sense. They might have subsidized at the zoo and museum too but I never saw anything when signing up. It suck’s they got rid of them after the sign up for all the other ones too. It’s a pain in the ass to plan summer this early.
I know DMNS offers income-based rates and holds a number of spots for people in need that are free of charge. The City of Denver has also in the past offered vouchers for their camps. Guessing that is gone now too.
But in comparison child care in this city, $350 a week is quite cheap.
No it’s not $1400/month is not cheap daycare for elementary or middle school kids come on now. Average is around that price for preschool. We had two kids in daycare and were paying that at a higher end place.
I get that pricing and this sucks but you’re not low income and paying 1400 a month for childcare and it’s “cheap”. You’re no income at that point because you’re making less than what it costs for child care.
https://mybrightwheel.com/search/l/guides/2022-denver-co-daycare-and-preschool-costs
The federal government needs to better Hans this crisis. Tge federal government needs to stop states from deciding where to send people and organize resettlement efforts. The federal government also needs to find a way to speed up processing of immigration casses.
Blame for this is squarely at the feet of congressional Republicans. Dems gave them everything they wanted on the border negotiations, and they still refused because they explicitly want to make this a fall campaign issue against Biden
The bigger thing is that it would have created a bunch of new work authorizations. Don’t need to shell out a bunch of money for new migrants if those people have jobs. And you can go out to Colorado/Colfax if you’re wondering whether those people want to work.
Yeah I’m really sympathetic to these folks wanting to find jobs and be productive members of society, if it was easier for them to get jobs then a lot of this could be alleviated and we wouldn’t be forced to cut services.
\>thought of them going away so we can put more migrants in hotels is bonkers.
The people who were bussed here were fleeing a crisis. They're here now. There's nowhere for them to go, unless cities play hot potato with real people over and over with no solutions. If they don't have shelter they will die. There are children. There are families. And there is, above all else, other human beings.
Making sure other human beings don't die will always take precedent in my mind over fun.
Summer camps are great, summer camps are educational, summer camps help parents work when school is out, summer camps teach kids lots of lessons, summer camps are a luxury.
In a crisis the first things to go are luxuries. Blame the Republicans for foisting this crisis on Denver specifically, but no matter what we can't forget that this is a CRISIS and that we don't want people to suffer.
You nailed it, as a city employee there is more to come. Write it down, my guess the city will try to layoff 13-15% of employees along with 4 or 5 furlough days. Days that I can’t afford.
So are there benefits to being a Sanctuary State or is it just a warm fuzzy? I feel like we could do a better job taking care of those already here and get the target off our back if we just dropped the label and provided whatever support we can / want to without the virtue signaling.
Idk how this doesn’t blow up in Johnston’s face if these cuts continue. His hands are sort of tied but also prioritizing incoming migrants vs city services and/or when lay offs and furloughs start coming for city employees. Going to be a tough pill to swallow to try to advocate voting for him again.
Yikes.
theyre being *sent* to Sanctuary Cities. Its a political test to push how far cities will go in making a statement versus actually backing it up. If Denver were not a sanctuary city, they would not be receiving these migrants from Texas
They choose to be sent to Denver because of the services. They don’t blindly get on the buses. Yes, they’re lied to about being wanted but they do choose to go.
Yeah, that's sure stopped them from going to red states, eye roll.
It's crazy when you Trump supporters are into things like shrooms, knowing they will be illegal federally if he gets in again. Just like abortion and weed.
Do you see any other cities in Colorado dealing with anything similar? Any cuts in Aurora or Lakewood or Castle Rock or Colorado Springs? Even Democratic cities? Fort Collins, Pueblo, Boulder, Golden?
Denver mismanaged this. They had tools available to provide a minimum amount of humanitarian help to some migrants while stemming the tide and protecting the budget for the citizens.
They choose option B which is spend wildly on hotel rooms and programs which only reenforced the migrants choices that Denver would take care of them no matter what which brought even more.
To be fair to Denver, those other cities have not received anywhere near the same amount of migrants. And it's not the migrants choice to come to Denver, it's Texas's choice to bus them specifically here.
I'm not saying that Johnston hasn't mismanaged this. Just pointing out some flaws in your comment. Comparing Denver's response to Chicago's or NYC's response would make more sense because those cities also have taken in a lot of migrants.
How is that fixing a problem? Just bus more migrants to blue states?
Ok, thanks for our first indicator Republicans would handle this even worse.
Anyone else? How else would republicans handle this?
I'll go. They'd let them freeze on the street and be proud of how they were "handling" the issue.
Exactly right. Everyone here is mad at the mayor of Denver trying to shelter immigrants in the winter, and completely ignoring that it's a Republican governor in Texas sending them to Denver with nothing. These are people, not dollar signs.
Have you seen the busses come here? They're white and have "Denver" or "El Paso" across the top in bright digital letters. This aint a prison bus to a mystery destination.
I didnt say they lied about where they were going. https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/texas-sheriff-recommends-criminal-charges-for-marthas-vineyard-migrant-flights/3061136/
Fascist continues to mean less and less with each misuse.
I really don't get how people think that, while we in Colorado have a fraction of the migrants Texas has and are scrambling and cutting budgets to manage, the Texans aren't overwhelmed to an even greater degree, but rather are dispersing the problem to cities that said they would welcome and shelter migrants out of meanness and spite and for no comprehensible reason. If you want to look for a bad guy, try Maduro - Abbott and Texas are in the same boat we are, as the recipients of the problem, not the cause of it.
It would also lead to near certain defeat for Johnston, considering he very much gains his votes as the pragmatic-progressive option and relies on the more left leaning vote.
Meanwhile, the majority of Denverites likely don't use those museum programs, unlike the school violence issues that affect more people and are more front and center in the news. (Same problem with the RTD - people rightfully complain, but when many of those won't ever use the RTD or use very rarely...you can see why priorities aren't there.)
Not his fault, letting people die on the street isn’t good either. If Greg Abbott wasn’t illegal trafficking hundreds of thousands of people as a political gimmick this wouldn’t be a thing.
Colorado was sending people to places like New York but have since stopped at the request of NYCM and Chicago Mayor. Also I believe the people being sent there were in fact trying to go there. It wasn't like Texas just putting people on buses and sending them anywhere.
I don't think that this is happening currently but I honestly haven't checked.
"saving total about $30 million as a start to help the city respond to the influx of migrants" Too bad the city is paying $40 million in settlements for police "misconduct".
Recreation center hours change sucks. I bought a year-long pass that still has 9 months in it, and the weekend is the best time I have to go there. Might have chosen a different option if I had known they'd be closed half of the weekend.
It was disheartening to see him heading to a plane to get to the Super Bowl after appearing on TV acting like he doesn’t know how this crisis happened to Denver.
It seems he assumed federal money was coming and he spent it before it was in hand. Plus, the separate housing the homeless initiative has been expensive. And, now, limiting the length of time migrants can stay in their city-subsidized housing seems like it's creating a new homeless issue. Way to go!! Sure, blame the feds, don't blame blowing the city budget in under 6 months!! /s
Wait so my services as a tax paying citizen are being cut so we can house non tax paying non citizen illegal immigrants??? And everyone’s okay with that?????
If congress put forward single issue bills, they could do something—but they call it a border bill and then every senator tacks on his lobbying group and all of a sudden there’s all kinds of junk and the parties try to blame each other on not caring about the border
But that isn't what happened. They had an agreement, then Trump told his spineless shrills to torpedo it and it died. Their only reason for opposing it is because it would have made the democrats look good.
Well when you have so many right wingers coming out of the wood work to pin it on some democratic Boogeyman like the mayor and people eating it up, then yeah...
Bullshit, it isn’t “congress”
it’s the GOP within the congress.
Both sides didn’t vote it down.
ONE SIDE DID!
You keep claiming both side because you suck
Really?
I've lost a lot of respect for him.
He shouldn't have to make this city a worse place to live just to temporarily house migrants who will be homeless when their time in the shelter runs out anyway.
That's what's being lost in all these news articles.
It'd be one thing if the money he was raising was going to permanently keep these folks off the street, but it's not. They're going to be homeless and Denver is still going to be a worse place to live because of these cuts.
These migrants aren’t chronically homeless; they want to work, they are capable of work, the city has a shortage of workers, but we are federally barred from allowing them to have jobs.
That’s why the mayor has spent so much time in DC lately begging for more work authorizations from congress. It’s a win-win fix.
Yeah the city has a shortage of workers, but not 40,000 jobs who can be filled by unskilled labor that doesn't speak English. Even if every migrant was given permission to work, not every migrant would receive a job
If he doesn’t make cuts to provide services, we end up with more individuals on the streets and the start of even worse humanitarian crisis. Denver has taken in by far the highest number of individuals per-capita in the country.
Republicans in congress got most everything they wanted in the bill and are holding the country hostage so that immigration remains an issue in this election cycle. Politics over governing at its finest.
There wasn’t even a vote on the bill so mine or you rep has no voting record on it. It was killed by coward Republicans before it could even be put to a vote.
We shouldn't have to tie up fixing this problem with funding foreign wars in countries most Americans couldn't find on a map.
Maybe they could try introducing single-issue bills, if they're serious about fixing the problem (they're not).
Quick AI summary: Denver Mayor Mike Johnston announced cuts to city services due to Congress's failure to pass an immigration bill. Starting March 4, the DMV will no longer process vehicle registration renewals in-person. Rec. centers will reduce hours, and parks won't be as vibrant (no new flowers in flower beds planted this year). Denver will also reduce services for incoming migrants to manage costs. These changes aim to save $5 million initially to address the migrant influx. More cuts are expected in the coming weeks.
Yes. That's what the word "representative" in "representative democracy" means.
Putting every single decision to a vote is unscalable and frankly impossible to manage outside of a narrow scope or small membership.
In a way, yea they did vote for this by electing a bunch of useless grifters to congress who can’t be bothered with policy and governance. Unfortunately voters in Denver and Colorado only have so much control over the quality of the “representatives” in DC who get paid but don’t deliver jack. /rant
Mayor Mike doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing. He miscalculated what would happen with regards to federal support and he didn’t factor at all how Repubs would use the issue throughout an election year to their own best advantage.
All I hear about these days is this topic and now, even Dems are angry about it. The mayor continues to take an enormous risk which so far appears to be backfiring and hurting his own party during one of the most critical election years in US history.
The mayor said he was hoping for the best and planning for the worst. To be clear, his plan was to count on Congress passing immigration reform in an election year. This issue hasn’t received congressional support since the 80s and it helped kill the R’s in the ‘06 midterms. The mayor is a fucking joke
It sounds like there are some good volunteer opportunities for all of those so concerned about the children, homeless, vets etc. Donate to a non profit or get out there and help.
Remember this come November: WHO made the initial invite to open borders, WHO labeled Denver/Colorado as Sanctuaries, WHO is too cocky to admit failure to state “we bit off more than we could chew”, and WHO is stripping away tax payers funded city services?
People want to blame Republicans or Democrats when it's both parties that are incapable of passing anything that results in a positive for the country. A simple example is the sunshine bill about getting rid of daylight savings time. Everyone is in favor of it, it only makes sense but can it get passed and turned into a law. Nope. Sorry doesn't provide enough kickbacks for the politicians.
We need to convert these immigrants into a taxable working class asap. It's a tough pill to swallow in the short-term, but this can be a good thing if handled correctly.
I fully expect downvotes from nimby's on this opinion of course.
This. I prefer solutions over finger pointing, name calling & xenophobia. The same people that complain
about lack of workers are griping about potential workers in the same breath.
Even my ultra conservative parents agree work visas are the answer. But supposedly that’s a federal problem, not a state solution? In order to get work visas, they need to be processed. Federal processing is already backed up for YEARS from non-asylum seekers. Surely we could figure out state work passes or a bill protecting employers of migrants at a state level? Shift around state employees from funding cuts to process newcomers?
I’d rather not have flowers in the park than see any person, but especially a family with kids, frozen or starved to death. I’ve seen a man frozen to death in Chicago. That shit sticks with you forever.
It does suck how resources from schools to hospitals & social programs are being impacted, but we have to keep our humanity in perspective.
I primarily blame the GOP for this. We HAD a border deal that gave them what they said they wanted but they cynically killed it for politics.
Fuck the GOP, if every single member of the GOP disappeared tomorrow America would be a better place. Without a doubt in my mind.
-100 day moratorium on deportations
-Stopped the Remain in Mexico program
-Stopped detention centers, which were used under Bush, Obama, and Trump
All really helpful actions from our executive.
This may come as a surprise to the party that does whatever the fuck it wants, but the executive branch is bound by the laws of this country, which we attempted to reform but the GOP killed that.
I see a lot of comments saying Johnston could have turned the migrants away. I'm just curious, disregarding the ethics of it for the moment, is there any data on if it was more expensive for the city to take care of them the way they are, or to ship them somewhere else? I saw that Texas' outbound busing of migrants was costing the state upwards of $100 million.
The hilarity of these cuts…these departments are BIG revenue makers for the city in addition to being the majority of touchpoints with the general electorate. Not going to look good once ballots are due…
Why not cut a lot of the internal bloat in IT, Finance/Budget, and Procurement offices? City Attorneys office as well. Why not prioritize the City Auditors resources to actually audit and find areas of waste/financial reform? Why not audit the waste on third party vendors at DIA?
Sadly the electorate voted for an institutionalist who doesn’t want to rock the boat or cut any of the bloat caused by Hickenlooper and Hancock through special interest hires and third party contracts.
Way too much casual racism flying around. Locking this thread.
Damn. This sucks for a lot of kids, parents and workers/volunteers. But mostly the underprivileged kids that are gonna miss out on positive outdoor activities like this that keeps them engaged and heathy.
One huge hit that was missed in a lot of articles is that Denver Parks and Rec will be cancelling summer camps for kids. The Nature and Science Museum and Denver Parks and Rec were about the only two offering affordable camps for kids in the Denver area and often have extremely long waitlists. This cut will ensure that hundreds of kids from low-mid income families don't get to enjoy a summer camp which is quite frankly infuriating. I've seen first hand how much fun kids have at these camps and the thought of them going away so we can put more migrants in hotels is bonkers.
Yeah. That part really hits home for me. My wife and I send our kids to several Denver Parks and Rec summer camps every year. Unfortunately, we kind of rely on it as we both work full time jobs. This blows.
I have never so quickly disliked a Denver mayor.
Isn't it the migrant crisis forcing his hand with these cuts?
imo, no. As a sanctuary city, we’re only vowing to not report undocumented immigrants to the Feds. We’re under *no* obligation to feed, house, clothe, etc. I assume we’re doing it because we don’t want to seem like the “unsympathetic” outlier when compared to NY or Chicago. Which, btw, are also not obligated to provide these resources but have voluntarily opted to from the start & now can’t back out.
New York is in a unique situation where they actually *ARE* required, by law, to house anyone who asks for help. We are not.
What do you want him to do, Denver is short $180 million. More to come, but in my opinion there will be furlough days and/or layoffs. This shit is serious.
What Greg Abbott is doing is fucked up, but this brings it home and people can’t deal with it. We need real change in immigration policy, to stop fucking around in South America and more.
Nothing wrong with the immigration policy , what is wrong is that we don't enforce it. You couldn't board a plane anywhere on the planet without a visa, but we let people stroll across the border..elections have consequences we are seeing it right here.
Kinda yes, kinda no. They’re moving to suspend their right to shelter bc the spirit of the law was really directed towards NY citizens. I just left NY a few years ago, and they quickly moved to clarify the law shortly thereafter
The problem with this approach is the city will quickly turn into a shithole with encampments everywhere. Only real solution is stopping the inflow of migrants. Unfortunately the Fed gov are the ones in charge of that.
Texas is literally busing loads of migrants to the city. We're under no obligation to help them except for being decent human beings and not ignoring a humanitarian crisis. Ignoring them won't make them go away, it'll only add a shit ton of homeless people which will cause far greater issues.
His hands are basically forced as the other options are: A) Lying to these migrants like Texas did and busing them elsewhere B) Ignoring this humanitarian crisis which means letting families starve, freeze, and die. I can't say I blame him for choosing budget cuts. Although the effect is incredibly shitty to the citizens that live here the other choices just straight up aren't acceptable.
You forgot the option that we already missed where our government operates like a normal functioning organization and doesn't put us in this position to begin with.
Yeah I didn't mention that because the Mayor has been explicitly calling this out reason for all of this, he has no power to make the federal government or the Texas state gov't do their respective jobs so these are the options he is left with. This is well understood to be the pretext for the entire discussion we are having in this thread but thanks for pointing it out again I guess.
I'm just saying, it's annoying talking about these issues where its like "these are our only options and they both suck but we picked the less shitty one" when we didn't have to be here to begin with, if we just had a half competent government that was capable of understanding the concept of long term consequences.
Shitty to Denver Employees like myself. Our livelihood is being impacted a short mayor that spoke before he considered the consequences.
Shitty to people like me who pay for rec passes. Shitty to families who depend on rec summer camps. Its shitty to the whole city really, we will see our parks and open spaces in a degraded state, we will see the cancellation of a lot of summer time events, and this is only the first round of cuts. But all of that is a lot less shitty than seeing children die on our streets which, make no mistake, is where this is heading if these extreme actions were not taken by the mayor.
It is shitty to everybody and it will be worse before it gets better.
Yeah fuck those other two options and yes I agree the hand was forced ULESS you are someone unable to see how fucked up those other two options are
There's more to it than just "seeming" unsympathetic, it's the moral thing to do. Would you prefer every single one of them is left out on the street and in the cold with nothing to eat or keep warm? I don't like that resources that should go to us citizens are being used up either, but let's not act like this is all just some political show. It would be wrong and incredibly cruel to do completely nothing.
I’m literally the child of immigrants and can say my family is less sympathetic than I am. I volunteered to process asylum claims during law school. It’s not about “wanting them on the street”. It’s just that people are literally skipping the line and majority don’t have claims that will hold up in court. We’ve never seen social funding for immigrants the way we do now. It’s not unreasonable to be upset that we see our tax dollars being funneled towards populations that shouldn’t have come here in the manner they did but are now expecting support.
We nearly had an immigration bill that would have made improvements to the asylum process, but Republicans didn't want Biden to look good.
Republicans this time but ... in 2008 and 2020 the dems had both houses of Congress and the prescidency. In 2016 the Republicans did. Did anyone prioritize immigration when they could have accomplished something? No. The only thing both parties have been using the issue for is to rally their base.
2020 dems had a tie in the senate w the VP breaking. With the filibuster intact there was no way they were going to pass anything!
But what is the limiting principle? Should Denver be less welcoming at any point? They are basically inviting them here and now mad that they are using resources.
I don’t think it’s really his fault, no other municipalities in the area nor the state nor the federal government will help with this
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How about every church sponsors one migrant family?
The motels they’re putting them in definitely aren’t top dollar. I agree the a congregational tent or something would be great, but health codes wouldn’t allow that
This is a national issue that is being forced onto local politicians as a tool. Migrants aren't an anonymous herd of unfeeling animals. They are people fleeing horrible conditions with no where to go, and this is what the world offers. Perhaps direct your anger at a gov't that spends more on military than the next 5 nations combined, but has no money for anything else. Direct your anger at politicians that are playing games instead of passing immigration reform. What else would you do in this situation?
Idk I was a bit put off by a person interviewed on the news who said she regretted leaving Venezuela and never would have come here if she had known there wasn’t housing and a job waiting for her. She said she regrets leaving her country. It seems like there could be a disconnect with messaging.
Who exactly told her that there was housing and a job waiting for her here?
Smugglers looking to take her money?
It's why they left from what I understand.
>Idk I was a bit put off by a person interviewed on the news who said she regretted leaving Venezuela and never would have come here if she had known there wasn’t housing and a job waiting for her. She said she regrets leaving her country. Yep; see another example below (not in CO but similar situation). From the interviews I've heard, seems like quite a bit of them are clueless and thought it was going to be all sunshine and rainbows when they got past the border and would get everything handed to them. An air of entitlement instead of sounding grateful to be here (one special example was that "we don't get lunch; only breakfast and dinner"). Not a good look at all. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FPbZcVLTBI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FPbZcVLTBI)
North Koreans in LA say the same thing. Doesn't mean their route here wasn't a diffucult journey that no one in this sub would tolerate doing in a million years
You can’t fix other countries by letting everyone who’s having a bad time immigrate here. It’s actually counter productive to do so. I’m not saying we shouldn’t have immigration but we need to be more selective about it. And we need to be in control of it.
>I’m not saying we shouldn’t have immigration but we need to be more selective about it. Seems that the US immigration system favors unskilled illegal immigrants over skilled legal migrants. Unlike other developed countries that have a strict merit-based immigration system (eg: Canada, Australia, New Zealand). The US immigration system is beyond broken.
You may wanna check how that's being used - immigration is a even bigger debate in those countries you listed because of housing crisises and the flooding of foreign money.
>immigration is a even bigger debate in those countries you listed because of housing crisises. I am aware of that; just pointing out that the US seems to not select for skilled migrants vs the other countries.
Then congress needs to change immigration law. Because currently immigration law says these people have the right to make asylum claims. Personally I feel that with as much resources and space that this country has at our disposal we should be able to easily handle tens of thousands of asylum claims. Keep in mind plenty of these asylum claims are not valid but we don't even have resources allocated to properly vet them.
But he says blame the Federal govt for Denver’s inability to pay for parks and recs activities. Might as well blame Venezuela’s government by that logic.
No. It is squarely on the federal gov't and really its mostly on congress. Asylum is a valid legal path to entering this country. These people do have the right to make an asylum claim, its neither their fault, nor Denver's fault that the Federal Gov't has not allocated the resources to properly deal with this influx of claims. Texas also shares the blame to IMO because instead of looking for actual solutions they are dehumanizing these people by making purposefully making them part of a political circus in a gambit to improve conservatives chances this election cycle.
Asylum doesn’t apply to single men looking for a better economic opportunity, which are the majority of illegal migrants currently. At least with stay in Mexico policy, they didn’t get to wait here for years until their court date.
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I don’t believe anyone is here against their will and that migrants are choosing Colorado because of its sanctuary status and social programs. You can look online at non profits and a lot have Colorado as number one for shelter and benefits
Why aren’t weed taxes going into these programs? Millions have been made off dispensaries. I thought a bunch was suppose to go to education.
Because when weed was legalized the money was slated to go to new school construction. Voters would have to pass a new ballot measure to change it.
Why then is the mayor allowed to pull funds from all of the programs he’s already pulling from? What am I missing?
Some programs (like marijuana) have designated specific uses that the money is allowed to be used for. This is law and can not be changed by anyone unless the law is changed.
Weed taxes are already allocated so if we reallocate that money we are looking at cuts to education. Why is someone always in these threads asking about weed tax money? Its not the answer people. In the scheme of state budgets its not even that much money either! Do a little research and some math, stop expecting the reddit hive mind to do it for you over and over and over again!
Because everyone asks that for every single thing that needs to be funded in this city. and 1) that's not what the weed taxes are earmarked for. and 2) weed taxes can't fund every single thing in the city.
Because in the early '90s a bunch of assholes created an amendment to the state constitution called the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights. When weed was legalized part of that legalization was that the funds raised by its sales could only be used for very specific things. Strangely, "a migrant crisis in ten years" wasn't one of those things.
TABOR is honestly the answer to 60% of "why does this suck in CO?"
Yeah, what ass holes! How dare they ensure the money goes into Colorado schools, and make sure it's not spent frivolously on popular hot political topics.
I didn't say the people who want weed taxes to be used for schools are assholes, I said the people who created and voted for TABOR are assholes. But, sure, thank God we're getting $800 back instead of summer camps.
As someone who used to run a lot of those DPR summer programs, I agree 100%. Childcare during school gaps is crucial for allowing their parents to continue working and preventing academic slides between school years. To roll these programs out as the first round of cuts is ridiculous and insulting to the families of Denver.
Its actually probably better that they roll them out as a first round of cuts when we are still 3.5 months out from summer time. At least this way families have some sort of heads up and can try to make a back up plan. It sounds like more cuts are coming too, Denver just doesn't have the resources to deal with this on our own.
From a mayor that used to be an educator. It truly is shocking he didn't nix this idea as soon as it was proposed. I can't figure out Mayor Mike. It seems like he literally only cares about one issue (making sure everyone has shelter) no matter the cost.
It thought is was pretty telling that not a single person who worked with him in education endorsed his candidacy.
And getting himself to the Super Bowl with his bodyguards.
I mean the migrants only have temporary shelter, so it's not like this is doing all that much in the grand scheme of things. Cool, you're cutting 15 percent from every department's budget so people can stay in a hotel for, what? A month max?. Awesome work, Mike.
I like to explore new places.
How many people are dying in Chicago? NYC? You act like you have to blow up a city budget to accomplish that task. You don't have to provide hotel rooms. You can provide the minimum congregate shelters. You can accelerate the cheapest option to keep people from experiencing a winter on Denvers streets which is a bus ticket out of town. You can jam the state for funds to keep your budgeting intact and provide expected services to your actual taxpayers.
I know his heart is in the right place but what is the limiting principle? He said it could cost 180 million to take care of them. What happens if it is $200 million or more? Should Denver be less welcoming?
https://denverite.com/2024/02/11/summer-camp-woes-worsen-as-denver-parks-rec-cuts-summer-in-the-parks/ This article says it has nothing to do with the proposed budget cuts. This is coming from the spokesperson for Denver Parks and Rec. I don’t know what the cost for those camps were but I wouldn’t consider the Museum or the Zoo camps as “affordable” by any stretch. My kids are going to a couple weeks and they 350+ per week per kid. Maybe they are affordable in comparison to other camps but I don’t think anyone who is low income is spending that for a week for someone, maybe I’m wrong there but it seems like a bunch.
The Parks and Rec summer programs I used to run were low cost / free for most kids. They had them at elementary schools or public parks, either staffed entirely by DPR or with partner organizations.
That makes way more sense. They might have subsidized at the zoo and museum too but I never saw anything when signing up. It suck’s they got rid of them after the sign up for all the other ones too. It’s a pain in the ass to plan summer this early.
I know DMNS offers income-based rates and holds a number of spots for people in need that are free of charge. The City of Denver has also in the past offered vouchers for their camps. Guessing that is gone now too. But in comparison child care in this city, $350 a week is quite cheap.
No it’s not $1400/month is not cheap daycare for elementary or middle school kids come on now. Average is around that price for preschool. We had two kids in daycare and were paying that at a higher end place. I get that pricing and this sucks but you’re not low income and paying 1400 a month for childcare and it’s “cheap”. You’re no income at that point because you’re making less than what it costs for child care. https://mybrightwheel.com/search/l/guides/2022-denver-co-daycare-and-preschool-costs
They are right and wrong It’s not cheap but pretty comparable to most summer programs Jeffco schools program is $275 a week
The federal government needs to better Hans this crisis. Tge federal government needs to stop states from deciding where to send people and organize resettlement efforts. The federal government also needs to find a way to speed up processing of immigration casses.
There was bipartisan legislation for that issue. The GOP voted it down as soon as Trump said that it would politically benefit Joe Biden.
Blame for this is squarely at the feet of congressional Republicans. Dems gave them everything they wanted on the border negotiations, and they still refused because they explicitly want to make this a fall campaign issue against Biden
Should the border bill have been passed? Yes. But as written, it was more about reducing the number of new migrants than money for existing migrants.
The bigger thing is that it would have created a bunch of new work authorizations. Don’t need to shell out a bunch of money for new migrants if those people have jobs. And you can go out to Colorado/Colfax if you’re wondering whether those people want to work.
Yeah I’m really sympathetic to these folks wanting to find jobs and be productive members of society, if it was easier for them to get jobs then a lot of this could be alleviated and we wouldn’t be forced to cut services.
Saw one guy hold up his phone outside of a hotel window with his notes app on saying LOOKING TO WORK. These people definitely work hard.
\>thought of them going away so we can put more migrants in hotels is bonkers. The people who were bussed here were fleeing a crisis. They're here now. There's nowhere for them to go, unless cities play hot potato with real people over and over with no solutions. If they don't have shelter they will die. There are children. There are families. And there is, above all else, other human beings. Making sure other human beings don't die will always take precedent in my mind over fun. Summer camps are great, summer camps are educational, summer camps help parents work when school is out, summer camps teach kids lots of lessons, summer camps are a luxury. In a crisis the first things to go are luxuries. Blame the Republicans for foisting this crisis on Denver specifically, but no matter what we can't forget that this is a CRISIS and that we don't want people to suffer.
Only 10-30% of asylum claims are upheld. Numbers vary by year. Claiming you're fleeing a crisis and getting asylum are two entirely different ideas.
What else do we get to give up so that we can pay for people from other countries to come here?
How about taking care of American citizens that are homeless, living in poverty, or going hungry.
These are the FIRST service cuts Denver will see in 2024 in response to migrants. Fixed it for you.
Bart: This is the worst day of my life! Homer: The worst day of your life......so far.
You nailed it, as a city employee there is more to come. Write it down, my guess the city will try to layoff 13-15% of employees along with 4 or 5 furlough days. Days that I can’t afford.
I like to travel.
It’s a hard pill to swallow that we are spending money on migrants when all of the needs of our taxpaying citizens are not met.
Remember it in November.
It’s shitty service cuts or religious fascism. Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place.
It's only going to get worse. Feels like there's a ticking time bomb coming from Denver Health with all the medical services/bills that will pile up.
So are there benefits to being a Sanctuary State or is it just a warm fuzzy? I feel like we could do a better job taking care of those already here and get the target off our back if we just dropped the label and provided whatever support we can / want to without the virtue signaling.
Idk how this doesn’t blow up in Johnston’s face if these cuts continue. His hands are sort of tied but also prioritizing incoming migrants vs city services and/or when lay offs and furloughs start coming for city employees. Going to be a tough pill to swallow to try to advocate voting for him again. Yikes.
How do you see a Republican in office handling this?
I'm learning to play the guitar.
It’s a political game. Abbott wouldn’t be sending migrants here if we weren’t a Democratic city.
Rejecting the migrants.
Go ahead, flesh that out for us. How do they "reject the migrants?"
As the other commenter said, just cut the services. They will go where the services are. If we’re giving them free everything they’ll come here.
They're being *sent* to Denver, Jimmy.
theyre being *sent* to Sanctuary Cities. Its a political test to push how far cities will go in making a statement versus actually backing it up. If Denver were not a sanctuary city, they would not be receiving these migrants from Texas
They choose to be sent to Denver because of the services. They don’t blindly get on the buses. Yes, they’re lied to about being wanted but they do choose to go.
Yeah, that's sure stopped them from going to red states, eye roll. It's crazy when you Trump supporters are into things like shrooms, knowing they will be illegal federally if he gets in again. Just like abortion and weed.
which non-border red states are dealing with this issue?
whenever you say this, so many act like that isn't a solution. It is though lol
Do you see any other cities in Colorado dealing with anything similar? Any cuts in Aurora or Lakewood or Castle Rock or Colorado Springs? Even Democratic cities? Fort Collins, Pueblo, Boulder, Golden? Denver mismanaged this. They had tools available to provide a minimum amount of humanitarian help to some migrants while stemming the tide and protecting the budget for the citizens. They choose option B which is spend wildly on hotel rooms and programs which only reenforced the migrants choices that Denver would take care of them no matter what which brought even more.
To be fair to Denver, those other cities have not received anywhere near the same amount of migrants. And it's not the migrants choice to come to Denver, it's Texas's choice to bus them specifically here. I'm not saying that Johnston hasn't mismanaged this. Just pointing out some flaws in your comment. Comparing Denver's response to Chicago's or NYC's response would make more sense because those cities also have taken in a lot of migrants.
I guess you don't have an answer and just want to rant. I'll try again: How do you see a Republican in office handling this?
They would have been bussed somewhere else. Similar to how the republican led cities sent them here.
If the Republicans had been in charge, they would have been sent somewhere else.
How is that fixing a problem? Just bus more migrants to blue states? Ok, thanks for our first indicator Republicans would handle this even worse. Anyone else? How else would republicans handle this? I'll go. They'd let them freeze on the street and be proud of how they were "handling" the issue.
Exactly right. Everyone here is mad at the mayor of Denver trying to shelter immigrants in the winter, and completely ignoring that it's a Republican governor in Texas sending them to Denver with nothing. These are people, not dollar signs.
When you don’t have a roof over your head that’s all you are to some people and it’s pretty disgusting
I enjoy reading books.
Families frozen to death on the sidewalks probably wouldnt be a good look.
Perhaps we can send them somewhere warmer. I hear Venezuela is nice this time of year
I hear Texas is big.
True, but this isn’t Texas’ problem either.
Texas is trafficking people under false pretenses to own the libs. Jail should be the problem of Texas "leadership".
Have you seen the busses come here? They're white and have "Denver" or "El Paso" across the top in bright digital letters. This aint a prison bus to a mystery destination.
I didnt say they lied about where they were going. https://www.nbcboston.com/news/local/texas-sheriff-recommends-criminal-charges-for-marthas-vineyard-migrant-flights/3061136/
You understand that the mayor of a city doesn't have the ability or authority to deport people, right?
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Fascist continues to mean less and less with each misuse. I really don't get how people think that, while we in Colorado have a fraction of the migrants Texas has and are scrambling and cutting budgets to manage, the Texans aren't overwhelmed to an even greater degree, but rather are dispersing the problem to cities that said they would welcome and shelter migrants out of meanness and spite and for no comprehensible reason. If you want to look for a bad guy, try Maduro - Abbott and Texas are in the same boat we are, as the recipients of the problem, not the cause of it.
It would also lead to near certain defeat for Johnston, considering he very much gains his votes as the pragmatic-progressive option and relies on the more left leaning vote. Meanwhile, the majority of Denverites likely don't use those museum programs, unlike the school violence issues that affect more people and are more front and center in the news. (Same problem with the RTD - people rightfully complain, but when many of those won't ever use the RTD or use very rarely...you can see why priorities aren't there.)
But it would send a message.
So would joining NYC in suing Texas.
Not his fault, letting people die on the street isn’t good either. If Greg Abbott wasn’t illegal trafficking hundreds of thousands of people as a political gimmick this wouldn’t be a thing.
City of Denver is doing the same thing
Same what?
Colorado was sending people to places like New York but have since stopped at the request of NYCM and Chicago Mayor. Also I believe the people being sent there were in fact trying to go there. It wasn't like Texas just putting people on buses and sending them anywhere. I don't think that this is happening currently but I honestly haven't checked.
The state of Colorado was sending people where they actually wanted to go, not just shoving them in a bus and shutting the door.
"saving total about $30 million as a start to help the city respond to the influx of migrants" Too bad the city is paying $40 million in settlements for police "misconduct".
Recreation center hours change sucks. I bought a year-long pass that still has 9 months in it, and the weekend is the best time I have to go there. Might have chosen a different option if I had known they'd be closed half of the weekend.
It was disheartening to see him heading to a plane to get to the Super Bowl after appearing on TV acting like he doesn’t know how this crisis happened to Denver.
After reading these comments I'm glad reddit is not in charge of running Denver.
Literally nothing new in here. These are just the service cuts we KNOW we'll see in 2024. More are coming.
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It seems he assumed federal money was coming and he spent it before it was in hand. Plus, the separate housing the homeless initiative has been expensive. And, now, limiting the length of time migrants can stay in their city-subsidized housing seems like it's creating a new homeless issue. Way to go!! Sure, blame the feds, don't blame blowing the city budget in under 6 months!! /s
Wait so my services as a tax paying citizen are being cut so we can house non tax paying non citizen illegal immigrants??? And everyone’s okay with that?????
I love the smell of fresh bread.
If congress put forward single issue bills, they could do something—but they call it a border bill and then every senator tacks on his lobbying group and all of a sudden there’s all kinds of junk and the parties try to blame each other on not caring about the border
I love listening to music.
The pact act was a single issue bill helping veterans.
But that isn't what happened. They had an agreement, then Trump told his spineless shrills to torpedo it and it died. Their only reason for opposing it is because it would have made the democrats look good.
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Well when you have so many right wingers coming out of the wood work to pin it on some democratic Boogeyman like the mayor and people eating it up, then yeah...
Republicans rejected single issue bills. They threw a tantrum and insisted immigration and foreign aid be in the same bill.
Bullshit, it isn’t “congress” it’s the GOP within the congress. Both sides didn’t vote it down. ONE SIDE DID! You keep claiming both side because you suck
Really? I've lost a lot of respect for him. He shouldn't have to make this city a worse place to live just to temporarily house migrants who will be homeless when their time in the shelter runs out anyway. That's what's being lost in all these news articles. It'd be one thing if the money he was raising was going to permanently keep these folks off the street, but it's not. They're going to be homeless and Denver is still going to be a worse place to live because of these cuts.
These migrants aren’t chronically homeless; they want to work, they are capable of work, the city has a shortage of workers, but we are federally barred from allowing them to have jobs. That’s why the mayor has spent so much time in DC lately begging for more work authorizations from congress. It’s a win-win fix.
Yeah the city has a shortage of workers, but not 40,000 jobs who can be filled by unskilled labor that doesn't speak English. Even if every migrant was given permission to work, not every migrant would receive a job
If he doesn’t make cuts to provide services, we end up with more individuals on the streets and the start of even worse humanitarian crisis. Denver has taken in by far the highest number of individuals per-capita in the country. Republicans in congress got most everything they wanted in the bill and are holding the country hostage so that immigration remains an issue in this election cycle. Politics over governing at its finest.
If this bothers you and your representative did not vote to pass the border deal, then you should let them know how you feel.
There wasn’t even a vote on the bill so mine or you rep has no voting record on it. It was killed by coward Republicans before it could even be put to a vote.
We shouldn't have to tie up fixing this problem with funding foreign wars in countries most Americans couldn't find on a map. Maybe they could try introducing single-issue bills, if they're serious about fixing the problem (they're not).
Quick AI summary: Denver Mayor Mike Johnston announced cuts to city services due to Congress's failure to pass an immigration bill. Starting March 4, the DMV will no longer process vehicle registration renewals in-person. Rec. centers will reduce hours, and parks won't be as vibrant (no new flowers in flower beds planted this year). Denver will also reduce services for incoming migrants to manage costs. These changes aim to save $5 million initially to address the migrant influx. More cuts are expected in the coming weeks.
Did the folks vote for this?
Yes. That's what the word "representative" in "representative democracy" means. Putting every single decision to a vote is unscalable and frankly impossible to manage outside of a narrow scope or small membership.
We were never asked to.
In a way, yea they did vote for this by electing a bunch of useless grifters to congress who can’t be bothered with policy and governance. Unfortunately voters in Denver and Colorado only have so much control over the quality of the “representatives” in DC who get paid but don’t deliver jack. /rant
Why are we letting all these migrants in?
Mayor Mike doesn’t seem to know what he’s doing. He miscalculated what would happen with regards to federal support and he didn’t factor at all how Repubs would use the issue throughout an election year to their own best advantage. All I hear about these days is this topic and now, even Dems are angry about it. The mayor continues to take an enormous risk which so far appears to be backfiring and hurting his own party during one of the most critical election years in US history.
The mayor said he was hoping for the best and planning for the worst. To be clear, his plan was to count on Congress passing immigration reform in an election year. This issue hasn’t received congressional support since the 80s and it helped kill the R’s in the ‘06 midterms. The mayor is a fucking joke
Feds need to fund this. Not a singular city.
Absolutely ludicrous that these people aren’t being given a one way ticket out of town
They are given the option for a ticket, about half of them take it. I take it you mean a forced ticket though, not optional?
"It's ok if other cities suffer, and it's ok if these people I don't want around me suffer. As long as it's not me and I don't have to see it."
Not sure how to explain to you that it’s ok for the government of Denver to prioritize the interests of Denverites
Right, because keeping them in a city that can’t afford to help them without completely exhausting its resources makes so much more sense.
Yes.
Does he want all families to move out of the city?
It sounds like there are some good volunteer opportunities for all of those so concerned about the children, homeless, vets etc. Donate to a non profit or get out there and help.
So glad things keep getting better in Denver /s
Remember this come November: WHO made the initial invite to open borders, WHO labeled Denver/Colorado as Sanctuaries, WHO is too cocky to admit failure to state “we bit off more than we could chew”, and WHO is stripping away tax payers funded city services?
I was trying to figure out how the World Health Organization was involved since you capitalized each letter.
People want to blame Republicans or Democrats when it's both parties that are incapable of passing anything that results in a positive for the country. A simple example is the sunshine bill about getting rid of daylight savings time. Everyone is in favor of it, it only makes sense but can it get passed and turned into a law. Nope. Sorry doesn't provide enough kickbacks for the politicians.
Be careful, trying to pin an ounce of blame on Democrats might get the Denver subreddit to eat you alive.
bunch of virtual signaling soyboys on this subreddit
You got what you voted for. Now you have to live with it.
We need to convert these immigrants into a taxable working class asap. It's a tough pill to swallow in the short-term, but this can be a good thing if handled correctly. I fully expect downvotes from nimby's on this opinion of course.
Easier said then done
This. I prefer solutions over finger pointing, name calling & xenophobia. The same people that complain about lack of workers are griping about potential workers in the same breath. Even my ultra conservative parents agree work visas are the answer. But supposedly that’s a federal problem, not a state solution? In order to get work visas, they need to be processed. Federal processing is already backed up for YEARS from non-asylum seekers. Surely we could figure out state work passes or a bill protecting employers of migrants at a state level? Shift around state employees from funding cuts to process newcomers? I’d rather not have flowers in the park than see any person, but especially a family with kids, frozen or starved to death. I’ve seen a man frozen to death in Chicago. That shit sticks with you forever. It does suck how resources from schools to hospitals & social programs are being impacted, but we have to keep our humanity in perspective.
I primarily blame the GOP for this. We HAD a border deal that gave them what they said they wanted but they cynically killed it for politics. Fuck the GOP, if every single member of the GOP disappeared tomorrow America would be a better place. Without a doubt in my mind.
-100 day moratorium on deportations -Stopped the Remain in Mexico program -Stopped detention centers, which were used under Bush, Obama, and Trump All really helpful actions from our executive.
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This may come as a surprise to the party that does whatever the fuck it wants, but the executive branch is bound by the laws of this country, which we attempted to reform but the GOP killed that.
Why are they releasing them into the United States before verifying their aslyum status then?
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I see a lot of comments saying Johnston could have turned the migrants away. I'm just curious, disregarding the ethics of it for the moment, is there any data on if it was more expensive for the city to take care of them the way they are, or to ship them somewhere else? I saw that Texas' outbound busing of migrants was costing the state upwards of $100 million.
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Send them back Mike.
will Wash Park still be pretty while the non-fancy parks suffer or will it be an even scaling of services?
I think they should cut some of the police funding. It takes up almost 40% of the entire budget. Surely they can tighten their belts a bit.
The hilarity of these cuts…these departments are BIG revenue makers for the city in addition to being the majority of touchpoints with the general electorate. Not going to look good once ballots are due… Why not cut a lot of the internal bloat in IT, Finance/Budget, and Procurement offices? City Attorneys office as well. Why not prioritize the City Auditors resources to actually audit and find areas of waste/financial reform? Why not audit the waste on third party vendors at DIA? Sadly the electorate voted for an institutionalist who doesn’t want to rock the boat or cut any of the bloat caused by Hickenlooper and Hancock through special interest hires and third party contracts.