The city of Denver announced that it would be closing several shelters for migrants amid an ongoing budget issue. The city has received thousands of migrants in the last several years and faces a similar budget crunch as New York City, which announced across-the-board cuts to its city’s finances.
The city of Denver initially denied reports that it was laying off part of its workforce. However, following the denial, the city admitted that it was reducing some employees’ work hours to zero.
Denver Mayor Mike Johnston (D) said that the city would reduce its migrant services and would be closing several migrant shelters. The city would close one shelter each week for four weeks in order to help plug a $60 million deficit. The city may ultimately reopen the migrant shelters if it receives new illegal aliens, the mayor said.
Despite the move, no migrants would lose their place to live. The city plans to move the migrants to other shelters.
The mayor said that the city was “putting in place now the infrastructure to be able to manage” a new surge of migrants.
“Our plan is to try to close the shelters and keep them closed and move away from a system that has remained largely significant numbers of open hotels for ongoing housing,” he said.
Denver is now laying off city employees to pay and house a record influx of migrants. People are losing their livelihoods over this situation.
Anyway, send more. A lot more. https://t.co/iuYJEpCWDY
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) February 27, 2024
New York City announced cuts totaling 5% for each department due to the ongoing migrant crisis. The city has received almost 200,000 migrants in the past two years.
Included in the cuts are library services as well as reductions to planned training for the New York Police Department (NYPD). The decision came even as crime linked to migrants has been increasing.
New York also faced direct issues related to the migrants, including its shelters being filled near capacity. Earlier this year the city announced the temporary closure of a high school in order to house migrants who were living at an airfield.
Furthermore, there have been three separate incidents in Times Square involving migrants, including the beating of several NYPD officers by a mob of migrants. In a separate incident, a migrant minor shot a tourist before attempting to flee the city.
