Hats off to Mayor Mike Coffman and council members Danielle Jurinsky and Steve Sundberg for ringing the bell with a perfect score of 100 in their push for an anti-immigrant, anti-homeless resolution headed to the full city council.
There is not a single laudable or redeemable thing about this divisive, ham-handed attempt to dehumanize and denigrate the most vulnerable people in the region.
So far, Coffman, Jurinsky and Sundberg have sponsored, or voiced their support for, the resolution they say is intended to keep the flood of immigrants stressing Denver from further spilling into Aurora.
It does no such thing.
As written, the manifesto serves only to make Aurora appear to be run by a clown-car of racist NIMBYs.
Here’s how bad this is:
First, the sponsors drag back the humiliating 2017 declaration that Aurora is “not a sanctuary city.” That fiasco hails back to a previous Donald Trump-invoked controversy over U.S. cities refusing to have their local police departments work with ICE units to round up undocumented immigrants for deportation. The Trump regime branded such municipalities “sanctuary cities.”
Aurora police were steadfast in making it clear that local police cannot ask, determine or act on citizen status without creating a huge danger for the entire community. Turning local police into ICE agents would drive immigrants far underground, making them targets for crime and pressing them to flee even from minor or major car crashes.
With Trump in the ears of conservatives at the time, the city council pressed ahead, shocking Aurora, including the tens of thousands of immigrants and minorities who call Aurora home.
A meaningless and divisive stunt, it was quickly ignored and forgotten, until now.
Coffman, Jurinsky and Sundberg in this resolution point back to the offensive proclamation to remind the city just how close Trump is to running the show here.
It only gets worse from there.
The document nukes any hope for ensuring regional issues like homelessness, immigration, crime and disease be handled on a regional basis, something that Coffman has repeatedly campaigned for and never delivered.
This edict creates layers of “us” versus “them.” It’s Aurora versus Denver or Fort Morgan. It’s “American” homeless people versus “immigrant” homeless people, the “others.”
It treats a looming humanitarian crisis right here in Aurora and across the metroplex like an inconvenient zoning question no one here asked for. Declaring from the city council dais that, “it sucks to be them,” is something everyone expects from Texas and Florida, not from Colorado, and never from Aurora.
Despite the cruelty and racism weaved into this sanction, clownishly concealed with the government-ese equivalent of “some of my best friends are homeless immigrants,” the structure of the conceit is fatally flawed.
As written, it resolves that “the City Council demands organizations cease the transportation of migrants and those experiencing homelessness into Aurora without an agreement to address the financial impact and coordination of services.”
Really? Which “migrants” and which of “those who are homeless?” Veterans? Children? Any of all of the thousands of homeless people in the region living in cars and on streets long before the wave of Venezuelan “legal refugees” arrived in the region? And to which service facilities? The ones the city has aided but not operated? The ones that have received federal state and other pass-through money that did not come from Aurora taxpayers? Catholic churches?
Despite the passionate wishes of Jurinsky, Coffman and Sundberg, city council “resolutions” are not ordinances and laws.
Jurinsky erroneously believes police can “write tickets” to Uber drivers and church van drivers for running Venezuelan immigrants, homeless vets or any other homeless person to Aurora doctor appointments, or to get food or to attend school in Aurora, where immigrant, homeless children are already enrolled.
The United States precludes such Stasi-like antics, from the Constitution on down.
Councilman Curtis Gardner, who voted against the resolution, called it “divisive.” He pointed out that, as written, it would force city employees and emergency workers to determine the residency status of just about everyone seeking anything from the city just to comply with this blunder. “The City Council resolves it will not allocate public funds, services, or staff resources for migrant support.”
That would include libraries, ambulance services, police reporting or water leaks at a house where immigrants are living.
Jurinsky dismissed Gardner’s well-founded appraisal, saying that city employees would have to rely on common sense in carrying out the wishes of those city lawmakers who agree with all this.
Clearly, common sense abandoned this council clique long ago.
Residents can only appeal to the other eight city lawmakers to kill this hateful pronouncement.
Instead, Aurora, Denver and other local municipalities must demand that the state and federal government provide money and other emergency resources to manage what is nothing short of a crisis, affecting not just the tens of thousands of immigrants who have arrived here, but everyone else in the region. If Congress abandons the region, area businesses and governments should just begin hiring these immigrants, who have made repeatedly clear, they just want to work. And since this city council has repeatedly demonstrated that “work first” is their preference for anyone receiving homeless services, this should be a no-brainer.
These three Aurora Republicans should instead appeal to their GOP political comrades in the House and Senate, who recently bent to a demand by Trump to create local immigrant chaos just like this.
End these politicized histrionics now and work to solve this critical problem. Lawmakers here and across the region must protect the lives of these immigrants and everyone else.
Follow @EditorDavePerry on BlueSky, Threads, Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook or reach him at 303-750-7555 or dperry@SentinelColorado.com
Dave you got it right again. But elections have consequences and we’re seeing it now with these incompetents on the council.
Anything that hurts your rad-left political ideology is automatically good.
I’ll proudly be a NIMBY. Keep those that do not contribute to the community, but instead raise crime and financially drain resources, out of Aurora. Let Aurora be a city of diverse tax-paying, law-abiding, contributing residents instead. Aurora is NOT a sanctuary city, nor should it act as one.
If Congress abandons the region, area businesses and governments should just begin hiring these immigrants, who have made repeatedly clear, they just want to work.
If you are going to lecture others you might want to first proofread your work. The clause in the above sentence “who have made it repeatedly clear” could not be more unclear.
Mz Jurunsky seems to be “intolorant” of Immigrants yet, she is going to spend taxpayors monet next month to hand out supplies to refugies of the Gaza
Crusis? Sounds like a free vacation trip at the expence Aurora’s citizens to me. I’d rather spend my $ on heloing people up than letting narrow minded polys get a free ride on my dime.
i was of the impression she was going on her own dime to assist. i was not aware she would be spending taxpayer dollars. Do you have a citation for this claim? If so it would be much appreciated.
Helping others is one of the things we do to make us feel good about ourselves. It is the basis of all charity and the good in people. What I have a problem with is when people want to do things to feel good about themselves but insist on doing it with other people’s money, and in a way that hurts the community. We cannot stop people who insist on donating their own money to illegal immigrants. But expecting government to do the same is volunteering the tax dollars of others in the community who expect it to be used for the benefit of the citizens of that community. And when those dollars go to help migrants who entered this country illegally, they write home and tell all their neighbors not to worry about the laws here, even the people here don’t care about their own laws. They will give you food, money, a place to stay and safe harbor against the authorities. This leads to the situation we are in with uncontrolled illegal immigration. Our social safety net already cannot provide for all of our own. The taking on of tens of millions more will surely break the system. We need to think with our minds, not our emotions.
Tell Congress, especially the ReTrumplicants in the House.
You mean like your side pretending HR 2 and HR 29 don’t exist?
No, I’m thinking of the bipartisan-brokered Senate bill that was negotiated over months and then killed by Trump and his Speaker-For-Now toady hack. Again with the ‘sides’; why can’t you just respond to the issues and their related comments? The world really isn’t made up of binary sets.
That “bipartisan” bill was trash from the beginning, and Trump had nothing to do with killing it. Don’t whine about “sides” being accurately pointed out when you’re one of the biggest partisan left-wing hack commenters on this board.
Dave- Where were you when Douglas County formalized its NIMBY policy to keep having its Sheriff’s Department transport their homeless to Aurora and Denver?
As I recall, the Mayor backed down on his demands that DougCo cease and desist after DougCo offered to write a big check to make sure their homeless problem would land in someone else’s backyard.
With respect to migrants and other homeless, Aurora should “close its border” to both Denver and DougCo. How will matters improve otherwise? Denver because they welcomed the migrants with open arms and DougCo because of their NIMBY attitude.
With respect to Denver wanting money from Aurora, sorry. Both cities live and die on sales tax. Denver enjoys the hottest retail economy in the the state while Aurora languishes near the bottom.
Perhaps the Botanic Gardens can be converted to affordable housing. History Colorado, the Museum of Nature and Science and the Denver Art Museum, too.
Perry’s activist lexicon is on full display. The resolution’s sole goal is to clarify that the City’s resources are first and foremost for the tax paying citizens of said City. The resolution makes no racist disparagements nor does it bar immigrants from living in Aurora. Why Perry is so against tax dollars benefiting tax payers is a mystery since in all of his invective filled tirade he never explains his desire to divert tax money to illegal aliens. Perry is so terrified of Aurora not bowing and scraping to the DEI gods that he must type words to illicit fear and lies. Typical Perry and typical Sentinel.
Alejandro Mayorkas, the Secretary of Homeland Security, affirms over and over under oath “our border is secure!”
Really…. Alejandro!
Dave Perry is one that refuses to accept Mayorkas official leader of DHS is a DC insider and a peddler of lies. Thus, this DHS pathogenic agency continues with its mission of unwillingness to do it job. The tide of illegals keeps on raising. Perry with his political machinations conducts itself in a vacuum and the belief of unlimited taxpayer money- supreme- forevermore. Watching the border chaos now a steady drum beat at out front door affecting you and me, and also distressing Perry. And Dave, does not like the reality of its disorder any more than the rest of us. But Dave can’t just wish this DC-Biden /Mayorkas caused certainty away. So somehow Perry, wants to rewrite and twist this into a local contorted story that these bad people on city council are now raciest.
Because these cities that insisted on holding themselves out (Come on in no questions asked) we’re sanctuary cities, and it backfired to the max. Perrys local ranting carries little sway. But the consequences of continuing this phony funding, handing over money to these cities people that do sway recognize it.
Below is a summary of Federal H.R. 5717. And of course, these two congressmen to even think shutting down and restricting funding to these cities must be raciest to bring forward such a law.
Just ask Dave!
118THCONGRESS 1ST SESSION H. R. 5717
SEC. 3. SANCTUARY JURISDICTIONS INELIGIBLE FOR CERTAIN FEDERAL FUNDS. Beginning in the fiscal year that begins after the date of enactment of this Act, a sanctuary jurisdiction is ineligible to receive any Federal funds that the sanctuary jurisdiction intends to use for the benefit (including the provision of food, shelter, healthcare services, legal services, and transportation) of aliens who are present in the United States without lawful status under the immigration laws (as such terms are defined in section 101 of the Immigration and Nationality Act).
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
SEPTEMBER 26, 2023 Mr. LALOTA (for himself, Mr. LANGWORTHY, Mr. MCCAUL, Mr. D’ESPOSITO, Ms. TENNEY, Mr. GARBARINO, Mr. LAWLER, Mr. WILLIAMS of New York, and Mr. GIMENEZ) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary