Denver sets up emergency shelter to house group of 100 migrants
Lindsey Toomer
(Colorado Newsline) The city of Denver is housing a group of up to 100 migrants, who unexpectedly arrived Monday night, in an emergency shelter.
No information so far is available from officials on where the migrants came from, and how or why they came to Denver. The shelter is set up at an undisclosed city recreation center due to “the security and sensitivity of this evolving situation,” the city’s Office of Emergency Management said in a news release.
Denver Mayor Michael Hancock said in tweet that the city and its network of service providers “worked swiftly” to set up the emergency shelter Monday night. He said the city will do what it can to support the people and connect them to helpful resources.
“Denver is and always will be a welcoming community, and we will support these individuals and families with the humanity and dignity they deserve while facing such a difficult situation,” Hancock said in a tweet. “Our priority is the health and safety of all our residents, including those who are migrants.”
U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper, who is also a former Colorado governor and Denver mayor, seemed to hint in a news release that the migrants might have been sent to Denver out of political motivation. He said that instead of playing “partisan games,” politicians should tackle the country’s “broken immigration system once and for all.”
“Human lives are not political props,” Hickenlooper said in a news release. “Denver will welcome these migrants with open arms and help any way they can. We will be empathetic to people put in a difficult situation.”
In September, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis arranged to transport about 50 Venezuelan asylum seekers to the island of Martha’s Vineyard, a move that was criticized as a political stunt.