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DENVER On the heels of cuts to city services to address a multi-million-dollar budget deficit in part due to the citys ongoing response to the migrant crisis, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston on Wednesday announced the upcoming closure of four migrant shelters he says will save Denver around $60 million in costs in the 2024 budget.

With the change in the citys strategy to address the crisis, Johnston said more work will be done to find additional cuts.

That means the $180 million deficit that we were facing is now closer to $120 million. That still leaves us $120 million of cuts to make, said Johnston during a press conference. So that means we still have work to do.

Johnston said the city will close one migrant shelter a week over the next four weeks.

In addition to the shelter closings, Johnston said the citys reinstatement of the length of stay program at shelters several weeks ago resulted in around 2,500 people leaving those shelters, which he said, cut the nightly shelter population by around 90 percent.

The limits mean individuals can stay at shelters for 14 days while families with children are allowed 42 days.

We knew if we were going to exit people, we had to double down on very high quality case management so we can exit people successfully to housing and to work opportunities without having them end up unhoused or on the streets."

Johnston added that since the changes to the length of stay at shelters, the city had not seen significant increases of unhoused people on the streets.

The single most important thing we can do to help connect people to opportunity is to get their work authorization, said Johnston.

According to city stats, there were 2,300 people in Denver-run shelters with around 30 people arriving daily, according to a news release.

At Wednesdays press conference, Denver City Council President Jamie Torres addressed what the city has done over the last few weeks to help migrants achieve work status.

The city has assisted 600 people filling out and submitting their work authorization documents. Another 700 are expected over the next two weeks, said Torres. So four clinics have been held. I believe another five are coming up this will go through next week.

Johnston added that the city has helped process work authorizations for around 1,000 people in the last couple of weeks and get access to legal work authorization within the next 30 days, said Johnston.

District 1 Councilwoman Amanda Sandoval said in addition to the work authorizations, the city has helped hundreds of migrants find temporary housing.

Frustrations grow among Denverites as city explores more budget cuts to address migrant crisis

Since January 31, the city has provided case management to over 700 individuals, which includes 500 people who have secured temporary housing thanks to the case management outreach, said Sandoval.

She said around 50 percent of those who obtained temporary housing were children.

That's a huge impact for me as we had the encampment in Northwest Denver. We saw children living in tents for the first time in Denver's history, said Sandoval.

The hotels serving as migrant shelters that will close include one in Aurora and three in northeast Denver and according to the city, the goal is to keep those shelters permanently closed.

Denver

12:52 PM, Feb 09, 2024

The city said the number of migrants in shelters has dropped by around half since peaking in January and currently the occupancy numbers are at the lowest number in around three months.

Our plan is to try to close the shelters and keep them closed and move away from a system that has revolved largely on significant numbers of open hotels. For ongoing housing, we're trying to do more and better at the case navigation that gets people directly from shelter opportunities into housing or into workforce options support and onward travel, said Johnston.

With the four hotels set to close, three hotels will remain open in addition to several congregate sites which include a church.

Despite closing the four hotels, Johnston said the city would have capacity to address another migrant surge if it were to happen in the future.

So what we've shown we can do is we can manage folks that arrive successfully. We can exit them successfully to programming and services and we can reduce city budgets, Johnston said. But what we can't do is have a city that stays on the hook for $180 million in costs without any federal support, without increasing work authorization or without a coordinated entry plan.

Wednesdays press conference comes after Auroras City Council this week approved by a 7-3 vote a resolution effectively halting city support of migrants and people experiencing homelessness.

We are bringing forward a resolution to let cities know that they're not allowed to bus migrants into our community without us knowing," said Councilman Steve Sundberg during Mondays vote. We want to simply let our residents know that although we are empathetic towards the plight of such folks, we cannot host them out of pure reality and our financial situation.

Aurora

10:45 PM, Feb 26, 2024

The adopted resolution was amended before the vote to eliminate a portion that would have allowed Aurora to take in immigrants if a financial agreement was reached beforehand.

No Aurora public funds, services or staff resources would be directed to migrant support.

Denver has spent around $58 million in its effort to support 38,861 migrants as of this week leading to cuts in services including a reduction in DMV and Parks & Recreation services.

During Mondays city council meeting, Councilmember At-Large Danielle Jurinsky, who co-sponsored Auroras resolution, took aim at Denvers cuts.

In Aurora, were not going to cut our services, were not going to shut down our rec centers. Were not going to do what Denver is doing and cut services to the people who live here, said Jurinsky.

What I find to be inhumane is knowing that the City of Aurora does not have the funds to start cutting out of our budget like Denver does, so to intentionally bus these people into a city knowing there is no help for them here, there will be no services for them here because we do not have the budget for that. That is inhumane.

Aurora City Council approves resolution halting financial support of migrants, unhoused population

During Wednesdays press conference, Mayor Johnston addressed Auroras actions.

First of all, it's false that we're sending them to Aurora. Second of all, I'd say history is pretty clear on this. There's a long history of cities in this country over centuries who bet on being anti-immigrant in their economic strategies, and look and see how those cities have done, said Johnston. Those cities have been on the losing side of history and every single moment and there have been other cities that have been welcoming,

Wrapping up the press conference, Mayor Johnston added: Denver has been and will be the most vibrant city in the state for decades to come. And it will be that way because it will be a place that's welcoming to folks who want to come and help build into something better. We will bet our future on that, said Johnston. But if folks want to bet their future on closing their doors, we'll see who wins.

At at city council meeting following the mayor's press conference, council members pressed the mayor's team to provide more information about how the city is adding up migrant costs.

"I need more specificity around how we're arriving at these numbers," Councilwoman Stacey Gilmore told Denver Department of Human Services executive director Anne-Marie Braga. "All of us need to be able to walk our residents through how we're doing our math."

Even though the mayor said the city is not abandoning migrants and will continue to help them find housing, jobs, or onward travel, some advocates worry about what's to come.

Some adult migrants have returned to a local encampment since leaving shelters.

"We're really concerned that this last batch that he's gonna be turning out over the next four weeks do not have any sort of plan," said Amy Beck, an advocate for the unhoused. "We're kind of holding our breath right now to see if the camp is gonna grow much larger over the next four weeks."

Denver to close migrant shelters in effort to save millions amid budget deficit

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Denver to close migrant shelters in effort to save $60 million amid budget deficit - Denver 7 Colorado News

In 2019, Panama released a study showing it had registered a staggering 4,060 domestic NGOs since 2000.This surge in NGOs is closely related to the intensity of the ongoing Central American migration crisis. For more than a decade, Gabriela Valencia has been championing the service and invaluable contributions of these local NGOs in addressing critical issues. However, her recent observations have revealed challenges to their agency and development approaches, stemming from what they perceive as uneven strategies aimed at governing migration in Central America.

Furthermore, recent research that I completed, examined how tackling migration crises through the USs ongoingCollaborative Migration Management Strategy, shapes the capacity and agency of local NGOs to deliver services in migrant-receiving countries. It highlighted the concern that transnational governance not only shapes development but also contributes to domestic competition and inequality for NGOs.

Latin America has long been considered by the US as their nearest backyard. Fourteen days after Joe Biden was sworn in as the US President in 2021, the White House passed an Executive Order that called for a strategy to collaboratively manage migration in the North and Central America regions. Thiscollaborative strategyrepresents the external half of Bidens administrative policy for addressing the issue of migration.The transnational strategy was intentionally designed to rectify the use of the controversialTitle 42 policy. It was also unilaterally constructed to allow the US to regain control of its Southern border by tackling the roots of displacement and addressing the flow of forced migration that has been rapidly incrementing and concentrating in the region.

Sprinkled throughout the strategy are terms like stabilize, expand, strengthen, support,and enhance, implying thatdevelopmentis an integral part of it. On the surface, the approach seeks to comprehensively refresh ties and sustain the co-responsibility of migration management by having the US work alongside and support its long-time Central American allies. In a polarised fashion, other weighty terms used in the strategy are govern, manage,and orderly process.This dual approach allows the US to put forward a blueprint based on governing through aid and development.

For Central America, migration control remains closely linked to relations with the U.S and because the assistance to migrant populations is primarily carried out by local NGOs, they have become pivotal to the complex migration governance strategy. Small host countries such as Belize, Costa Rica, and Panama are being asked to make every effort to not only assist and aid the extremely vulnerable migrant populations but to also curb their mobility towards the North by providing economic development and social integration programmes. While the US pushes to externalise migration issues and regain its regional hegemony, local NGOs are immersed in a political hot zone.

The existence of numerous NGOs in Panama is not without justification. Primarily, in Latin America, NGOs are often seen as a substitute for the shortcomings of state development. They enhance the role and representation of civil society in areas where fundamental needs are perceived to be inadequately addressed. In Central America, this perception is further shaped by nearly a decade of evolving migration crises converging within its borders.

From January to December 2023, the Panamanian government registered irregular entry through theDarien Gapof over 500,000 migrants from three main regions: South America, Antilles, and Asia. The primary attendants of these migrants are relief-oriented United Nations agencies, NGOs, and underserved communities that can assist them with their most immediate needs such as access to water, food, shelter, and healthcare.

Because of migration policies and their irregular status, the long-term settlement of most migrants will remain uncertain. Once their pressing needs are met, they will attempt to access other services (i.e. economic development, legal assistance, and social integration programmes) that will allow them to build some temporary stability in Panama. To provide such services, many local NGOs havepartnered directlywith UN agencies to access funding and strengthen their service capacity. By aligning with the strategy, the NGOs can access larger grants that are trickled down from the US through their main contractors such as USAID, UN agencies, and INGOs.

Figure 1 NGOs service provision range and relationship with agencies

The relationship of the UN Agencies, the NGOs of the study, and the services and types of migrants they assist.

Yet, even when the local NGOs can manage to acquire more funds to advance the services and learn to navigate the bureaucratic hurdles of the UN system, they will still find themselves adopting formidable obstacles in the form of economic instability and development constraints far beyond their participation in the strategy.

So far, the Mexican and Central American states capacity to respond to the current migration crisis has been limited. This results in an overreliance from the governments and international agencies on civil society organisations to aid and put forward responsive migration programmes through intensely transactional relationships. Local NGOs have quickly found themselves balancing economic dependency and advancing their development goals. They are continuously consumed and preoccupied by the inequalities within the systems they navigate.

Experiences of civil society organisations in Panama point to a highly competitive atmosphere to attain the grants and to impact a specific number of migrants without necessarily being able to recognise them as significant assets for the country and endure the impact. It seems like the scarce resources available continue to be directed indefinitely into providing temporary relief in what can be perceived as a never-ending cycle of humanitarian assistance. Therefore, as funding levels surge, these NGOs find themselves navigating a nuanced landscape filled with challenges that pose conflicts for their overarching mission and the effective delivery of services. The complex role that these NGOs have within the strategy iswidely relevantto understanding the mechanisms, procedures, and establishments that sustain inequality within the aid system.

While a definitive solution to the Central American migration crisis remains elusive, the collaborative strategy persists on its course toward implementation. Anticipating further participation from NGOs and agencies, I will continue my work with the aim of responding to the need for a more comprehensive analysis of the strategys implications and the role of local organisations in the Central American migration service system.

Excerpt from:
The Migration Crisis in Central America: How Domestic NGOs from Panama Are Central to the US Migration Strategy - LSE Home

In a sweeping effort to address the migrant crisis in Chicago, city and state officials have rapidly transitioned thousands from temporary shelters to homes across the South and West sides. This move has prompted migrants to leave shelters by the masses, many arranging their own transportation via Uber or Lyft to newly found apartments, the Chicago Tribune reported. The Illinois Department of Human Services has disclosed an expenditure of $41.4 million to resettle over 5,000 households, a departure from the initial state and city leaders' plan announced eight months prior.

Tensions, however, have begun to surface as families have been instructed to quickly relocate miles away to make room for new migrant arrivals an action that has disrupted established community connections. Nearly 40 families residing at an old YMCA on the North Side, previously informed of its permanent status, are now faced with the requirement to relocate to a shelter at Daley College on the South Side. Jill Hallett, a neighbor, bemoaned the move, "They have library cards. They just went on a field trip to the library. They know the parks around here. They know how to ride their bikes around here. They are already embraced by the community in West Ridge and Rogers Park. So please, stop uprooting these people who have sacrificed so much," CBS 2 Chicago reported.

The decision to shut down shelters is seen by officials as a cost-effective strategy, with the city estimating to save at least $19 million from the closure of five sites since February 9. The rapid resettlement, though, has raised concern among migrant advocates over their welfare and the city's lack of a coherent plan to aid migrants in their new environments. Additionally, families who arrived after mid-November did not qualify for rental assistance, leading some to call themselves the "hidden homeless," according to the Chicago Tribune.

While officials project the need for $321 million to continue the migrant program through the end of 2024, individual migrants such as Angelica Beltran reportedly faced new challenges of unheated and unfurnished apartments amidst unfamiliar and sometimes unsafe neighborhoods. As the number of migrants to find their own apartments increased, the changes to the rental assistance program have been controversial, prompting questions about the migrants' future stability and integration into Chicago neighborhoods. "I dont think anyone can predict the future, but I know that its definitely going to be challenging," Sylvia Puente, president and CEO of the Latino Policy Forum, told the Tribune.

Disruptions to children's lives have not gone unnoticed, with reports of kids reluctant to switch schools and the local uproar over the forced relocations underscoring the complex social dynamics at play. Families, advocates, and community members continue to express their concerns as the saga of Chicago's efforts to manage the migrant crisis unfolds.

Read more here:
Chicago Officials Tackle Migrant Crisis, Rapid Resettlement from Shelters to Homes Sparks Tension and Concern - Hoodline

As people in Eagle Pass, Texas, carry on with their day-to-day lives, just yards away is the U.S.-Mexico border the center of immigration and border issues.

"We're known now for something that's almost notoriety rather than being famous for something. And that's for the migrant crisis we've had here," said Mike Garcia, an Eagle Pass resident.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and other conservative governors nationwide have used Eagle Pass as a symbol to show record-high migrant surges which dwindled in January to more than 68,000 illegal crossings. It dropped fromnearly 150,000 migrantsin December, according to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics.

"So Gov. Abbott has managed to put pressure here in Eagle Pass and send cracks through the entire union," said Amerika Garcia Grewa, an Eagle Pass resident.

Now, former President Trump is going to visit Eagle Pass. His visit is aimed at highlighting the surge of people crossing into the U.S. illegally for years.

While some say Eagle Pass has nothing to gain from his visit, others believe his message of more enforcement is something the country needs to hear.

Meanwhile, President Joe Biden will also be in Texas to meet with border agents in Brownsville and continue his push to pass bipartisan legislation that gives more funding to border agents and faster asylum hearings. His visit is also being received with mixed views in Eagle Pass.

The number of migrants flowing into the U.S.-Mexico border has taxed the immigration system a system that hasn't been significantly updated in decades.

In Eagle Pass, those on both sides of the issue want action, to help both the migrants and the town.

SEE MORE: Texas Gov. Abbott announces border camps for National Guard troops

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Surge of migrants causing strain on border resources - LEX 18 News - Lexington, KY

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Denver Congresswoman Introduces Legislation to Address Migrant Crisis and Reform Immigration - Citizentribune