Liberal city’s costs for sheltering migrants nears $25 million

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Rep. Gonzales: Everything the border crisis touches turns to ash

Rep. Tony Gonzales, R-Texas, sounds the alarm on the state being overwhelmed by migrants and calls on solutions from Washington.

The city of Denver’s costs in dealing with the surge of migrants into its city is nearing $25 million, officials said this week -- marking the latest financial hit that liberal cities are facing as they deal with migrant influxes.

The city told Fox News Digital in an email that to date, its expenses for migrant sheltering efforts is close to $24.8 million.

Axios reported in August that the city had spent over $23 million in dealing with the crisis, and was dealing with an uptick in migrants -- although the city’s situation was said to be stable as leaders worked to solidify a plan on how to provide services.

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Venezulean migrants wait in a line to get paper work to be admitted to shelters at a migrant processing center on May 9, 2023, in Denver. (Helen H. Richardson/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images)

Fox reported in April that the city expected to spend up to $20 million over the subsequent six months, with costs of up to $1,000 per migrant per week. The city had declared a state of emergency late last year after numbers shot up in December.

Denver put certain limits on migrant shelter earlier this year, including a 30-day limit for how long migrants can stay in a shelter, as well as bars on returns and migrants engaging in "illegal activity."

Denver is one of a number of liberal cities that have been hit by a surge of migrants. Most prominently, New York City Mayor Eric Adams has warned that the migrant crisis facing his city could cost up to $12 billion by 2025 without federal action.

The mayor of the self-described "sanctuary" city has warned that the influx could "destroy" the city.

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"We are about to experience a financial… tsunami that I don’t think the city has ever experienced," Adams said recently. "Every service in this city is going to be impacted from child service to our seniors to housing. Everything will be impacted." 

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has bussed migrants to cities like Denver and New York City, but those buses represent only a fraction of the total number of migrants they have seen.

In Chicago, officials announced last week a $538 million deficit driven by several factors including "the cost to care for new migrants arriving to the city." NBC Chicago reported that at least $200 million stems from costs from special project costs — including migrant care. 

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Both Chicago and New York City are "sanctuary" cities, meaning they forbid cooperation with federal immigration enforcement. Denver officials have previously said it is not a sanctuary city, but city ordinances do limit cooperation with immigration officials -- leading conservatives, including Abbott, to call it a sanctuary city.

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Other jurisdictions have also sounded the alarm about the surge of migrants they are facing. Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey last month declared a state of emergency in the liberal state, while Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass recently said she is "fearful" that any day, "planes could start coming."

Meanwhile, at the border itself multiple Border Patrol Sectors are overwhelmed as they face over 8,000 illegal immigrant encounters each day this week. It has led to street releases of migrants in San Diego and Tucson as officials struggle to deal with overcrowding in their facilities.