Denver authorities said they will end a program aimed at helping migrants transition to more stable living in the city as the number of arrivals continue to drop.
The program, launched five months ago, provides help to get migrants temporary housing for six months, job training, language instruction and legal support to file asylum claims, among other benefits. Some 860 people are part of the program at the moment.
Authorities said that the decision is a result of the plan no longer being necessary due to the drop in arrivals. They are also closing the last migrant shelter at the end of this month.
Jon Ewing, a city spokesperson said that they have not received buses with migrants since early June and about 30 people arrived last week. The drop means that they can now stay in the traditional shelter system, rather than assigning additional resources for migrants in particular.
Since December 2022, 42,000 migrants have arrived to the Colorado capital, with the city doling out hundreds of millions to shelter migrants since. The city has spent close to $74 million in housing and support services alone, according to a new report by The Denver Gazette,
Most of them came from Texas as a result of Governor Greg Abbott's Operation Lone Star, which contemplated the bussing of arrivals to Democratic-led sanctuary cities including New York City, Chicago and Denver.
Records showed the Texas Division of Emergency Management made 750 payments totaling a whooping $221,705,637 to the transportation companies. On average, Texas spent $1,847 per person in the bus rides.
However, arrivals have dropped steeply over the year, especially since June, when the Biden administration cracked down on asylum seeking. U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported that Border Patrol agents recorded about 58,000 apprehensions between ports of entry in August at the national level, up from 56,399 in July but significantly lower than the record 250,000 encounters last December 2023. CBP estimates that the figure for 2024 will be the lowest since the end of the Trump administration.
As the amount of migrants reaching the state from Mexico has decreased significantly, the practice has mostly stopped. According to data obtained by NBC News, no buses were sent during July and there was no indication that it resumed over the past weeks. The figure compares to the 4,281 people sent in 95 buses on the same month of 2023, as shown in data from the Texas Division of Emergency Management.
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