Red city confronts big blue neighbor in immigration fight: ‘Denver doesn’t speak for all of Colorado’
CASTLE ROCK, Colo. – President-elect Donald Trump’s promised crackdown on illegal immigration has deepened partisan divisions between deep-blue Denver and its conservative neighbors, including the city of Castle Rock, which has already pledged to support Trump. upcoming immigration policies.
“Denver doesn’t speak for all of Colorado, and Denver certainly doesn’t speak for Douglas County,” Max Brooks, a Castle Rock councilman and newly sworn-in member of the Colorado House of Representatives, told Fox News Digital ahead of Inauguration Day.
The City Council unanimously passed Brooks’ measure last month expressing “strong support for President-elect Donald Trump’s proposal to address this country’s growing immigration crisis by undertaking mass deportations of unauthorized immigrants.”
The measure also expressed Castle Rock’s willingness to “cooperate with federal immigration officials” in this effort.
Castle Rock is the most populous city in Douglas County, Colorado, located south of Denver. Officials in the conservative region say they have been negatively impacted by the state’s de facto sanctuary status. (Alba Cuebas-Fantauzzi/Fox News Digital)
Brooks said the measure is a direct response to actions in Denver, where Mayor Mike Johnston suggested in November that city police could be deployed to resist federal immigration officials. Johnston later retracted that statement.
The Mile High City also accepted nearly 43,000 migrants between December 2022 and last summer, according to city data. The new arrivals departed at about the same time President Biden took executive action to stem the flow of migrants across the southern border, and Denver closed its last migrant shelter in early October, citing a lack of demand.
“You can’t bring [43,000] people to Denver and think they’re going to stay within the walls of Denver,” Brooks said. “They’re going to spread across the Front Range, which makes this a Colorado problem.”
Some locals told Fox News Digital that they have not personally seen the influx of illegal immigrants that has affected their neighbors to the north, but Brooks said the signs are still there. He pointed to the Douglas County Jail, which held 369 inmates Thursday, 15% of whom were listed as non-US citizens.
Crews from the city and county of Denver prepare to transport people to shelters or housing on Jan. 3, 2024. The city has seen an influx of about 43,000 migrants since December 2022, though the increase has slowed in recent months. (Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post)
‘JUST SOLVE THE DAMN PROBLEM’: COLORADANS ON EDGE OVER DENVER’S IMMIGRATION CRISIS
AND viral video of alleged Venezuelan gang members carrying guns through an Aurora apartment complex last August put Colorado at the forefront of the national immigration debate. Then-candidate Trump visited the city last fall, promising to “accelerate the elimination of these savage gangs.”
One Castle Rock resident, who said he immigrated legally from Brazil, had trouble judging people who may have entered the U.S. illegally
“It’s hard because they’re running away from poverty, violence, crime or whatever they’re running from,” he said. “For them to take that step in their life and be in such a vulnerable place, it must be really bad out there.”
But Catherine, who said she immigrated to Colorado legally from Colombia two years ago after a nine-year process, said “we need to be tough” on border enforcement.
“If you don’t control the rules, probably u [the] in the future your country will be the same [as our countries]”, she said.
Catherine said she immigrated to Colorado two years ago after a nine-year process. She expressed hope that the government would make it easier for people to immigrate legally, but also said the US needs to protect its borders. (Alba Cuebas-Fantauzzi/Fox News Digital)
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Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, has long opposed the idea of Colorado being a “sanctuary state,” but Brooks said cities like Castle Rock are “significantly hampered” by state laws that say police cannot work with immigration officials.
“Words are not as important as actions,” Brooks said. “We want cops to be cops. We want cops to be able to do their job.”
In recent times, said Polis he would welcome the federal government’s help in rooting out criminals and gang members, but that “persecution of law-abiding Coloradans who may have lived here for 20, 30 years” would be met with a fight.
Douglas County previously sued state over its sanctuary policy, but a district court dismissed the suit last month. Brooks said municipalities are considering new legal actions but are waiting to see how the situation changes after Trump takes office.
“We know we will secure the southern border,” he said. “So we know that Denver is not going to continue to bring illegal immigrants here as much as they might want to.”
