As Democratic Denver Mayor Mike Johnston says he could be prepared to go to jail over his opposition to the Trump mass-deportation plan, a brand new research claims the mayor’s Blue metropolis has spent a whopping $356 million of taxpayers’ hard-earned cash on migrants.
The attention-popping sum, which quantities to $7,900 per overseas nationwide within the metropolis, was revealed by an up to date evaluation final week by the Frequent Sense Institut (CSI), a non-partisan analysis group devoted to defending and selling the US financial system.
The group says it used metropolis knowledge to land on the beautiful sum, which equates to eight% of the town’s 2025 price range of $4.4 billion.
The figures mix the town’s price range in addition to regional schooling and healthcare organizations.
Denver has seen an unprecedented inflow of migrants arrive within the metropolis beneath the Biden-Harris administration and Johnston has already slashed metropolis companies to deal with and feed these migrants.
Cuts included decreasing companies at recreation facilities and stopping the planting of spring flower beds, whereas the town tapped right into a contingency fund to pay for the spiraling prices.
The CSI claims that the majority of the $356 million spent on migrants was by means of schooling, with the town additionally forking out on healthcare, accommodations, transportation and childcare.
Denver is a sanctuary metropolis, that means it doesn’t implement immigration legislation, nor does the town cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement brokers.
The group says that about 45,000 migrants have arrived within the Denver metro space since December 2022, with 16,197 migrant college students enrolling in Denver metro faculties.
“The full price to Denver metro faculties associated to new migrant college students is $228 million yearly, which might equate to 1-2% of the entire state Okay-12 schooling price range for the 2024-25 tutorial yr,” the group writes.
“Earlier CSI reporting estimated the per-student price of instruction and help within the Denver metro to be $14,100 per yr. Assuming this price throughout all latest migrant college students totals $228 million.
In the meantime, Denver docs earlier this yr mentioned that the migrant disaster had pushed the state’s hospital system to its breaking level and was inflicting a humanitarian disaster.
The CSI research estimates that emergency departments within the Denver metro space have delivered an estimated $49 million in uncompensated care to migrants.
“With 16,760 [migrant] visits to Denver metro emergency departments from December 2022 to the current, suppliers would have delivered $49,124,029 of uncompensated care to migrants.
The research experiences that on the top of the migrant inflow in January 2024, officers estimated Denver was going to spend $180 million by means of 2024. Precise expenditures tracked by the town now present it should spend about $79 million.
“Of the entire, 34.5% has been spent on services together with accommodations, 29.4% on personnel, 14% on companies, and 11% on meals,” the report finds.
Johnston mentioned throughout a latest interview that he was ready to protest in opposition to something he believes is “unlawful or immoral or un-American” within the metropolis – together with the usage of army power – and was then requested if he was ready to go to jail for standing in the best way of insurance policies enacted by the administration.
“Yeah, I’m not afraid of that, and I’m additionally not searching for that,” Johnston mentioned. “I feel the purpose is we would like to have the ability to negotiate with cheap folks [on] the way to resolve onerous issues.”
Tom Homan, Trump’s “border czar” designate, instructed Fox Information’ Sean Hannity this week that he would jail Johnston if he broke the legislation in shielding unlawful migrants.
“All he has to do is take a look at Arizona v. US, and he would see he’s breaking the legislation. However, look, me and the Denver mayor, we agree on one factor. He’s prepared to go to jail, I’m prepared to place him in jail.”
Fox Information’ Hanna Panreck contributed to this report.
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