Is migrant crisis federal government’s fault, or Colorado’s? | Vince Bzdek

It’s generally assumed that Texas is paying to bus migrants who have recently crossed the border to sanctuary cities like Denver. At least 161 buses have arrived in Denver from Texas in the past 13 months carrying many of the 38,000 migrants who are in the city now.

 

But here’s the thing: The federal government is actually paying for those buses to take migrants to Denver, the same federal government that Denver Mayor Mike Johnston is begging — without much success — for help with costs to feed and shelter the arriving migrants.

 

According to recent Federal Emergency Management Agency figures, Texas received more than $96 million from the federal government in the last fiscal year to reimburse its cities for feeding, sheltering, and transporting migrants who come across the border. Texas is asking for and receiving FEMA grants to directly reimburse cities like El Paso for the cost of buses they put migrants on and ship out to Denver, Chicago and New York. In fact, now the federal government is giving El Paso money up front, which relieves the city of coming up with the money first, to pay for those buses and other services at the border.

Last year, New York got even more money from the federal government — $107.7 million — to help with its migrant crisis through the newly created Shelter and Services program, according to figures from FEMA. Even tiny New Mexico got $14.7 million in FEMA grants to help defray migrant costs last fiscal year. How much did Colorado get? A little over $9 million for a crisis that has already cost Denver $40 million and is projected by Johnston to cost as much as $180 million eventually.

 

Why have Denver and Colorado received so little in federal funds when states like Texas receive so much? One reason: Border states are presumed to need more help than interior states.

 

More than two-thirds of the $363 million in FEMA Shelter and Services grants made to states last fiscal year — 60 out of 86 grants — went to border states, according to the Center for Immigration Studies. Entities in Texas got 45 of them; New Mexico, three; Arizona, six; and California, six. Four each were assigned to Colorado, Illinois and New York; three went to the District of Columbia; two each to Georgia, Minnesota, and Louisiana; and single awards went to Florida, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, according to FEMA.

 

But there is another factor: Texas politicians are really good at getting those funds. Colorado politicians, not so much.

 

While Colorado’s congressional delegation holds press conferences and writes letters and makes a lot of noise wheedling and cajoling the administration for help, U.S. Rep. Veronica Escobar of Texas simply gets the job done behind the scenes.

She issued a press release a year ago describing “the level of unprecedented effort by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in collaboration with her office to reimburse the City of El Paso and El Paso County for costs related to migrant arrivals.”

 

“We should all be incredibly grateful to Biden Administration, FEMA and its coordinators for their extraordinary efforts to support our community,” Congresswoman Escobar went on in the press release in a tone very different than that being heard from Colorado politicians recently. “The agency has been responding to this humanitarian crisis created by Western Hemispheric unrest and decades of congressional inaction on immigration reform. Not only have El Paso’s requests been met with diligent consideration, but subsequent to my conversations this weekend with Secretary Mayorkas and FEMA leadership, they have also been further expedited on our behalf.”

 

Mayorkas is Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, whom the House is expected to vote to impeach in the coming days for the Biden administration’s handling of the situation along the U.S.-Mexico border

If successful, it would mark just the second impeachment of a Cabinet secretary in U.S. history, and the first in nearly 150 years.

 

Meanwhile, Texas continues to move migrants along to other states with efficiency and dispatch. The Denver Gazette sent a reporter and videographer down to El Paso and saw a city that was relatively calm in its handling of migrants, compared to the frenzied state of affairs in Denver and Colorado Springs last week.

In many ways, the contrast between the two cities this week — at least this week — are palpable,.” writes reporter Nico Brambila of Denver and El Paso. “Sitting directly across from Ciudad Juárez in west Texas along the Rio Grande River, which serves as a natural boundary between the U.S. and Mexico, the streets here had none of the telltale signs Denver residents have grown accustomed, a city bursting at the seams with immigrants.”

 

Immigrants are eager to get out of El Paso and away from the border to friendlier places like Denver because of the fear of deportation. They don’t fear deportation in Denver because its status as a so-called “sanctuary city” means local officials and law enforcement do not report an individual’s immigration status to federal authorities. Brambila told me that the two main reasons she heard this week why migrants are traveling specifically to Denver from El Paso — free buses, and the availability of shelters in Denver.

 

“I am proud to have facilitated the administration’s prioritization of our community,” Escobar further said in her release, “which has resulted in an additional $6 million in advanced payment for the City for this quarter and look forward to my continued partnership with the Administration, FEMA, and community stakeholders.

 

“My team and I are currently working with the House Appropriations Chairwoman Rosa DeLauro and her staff on other solutions and funding opportunities through the FY23 Omnibus being crafted now that will augment the work happening at the local level and provide the financial support needed as well. I remain committed to securing the resources our community needs and ask that all local stakeholders enhance their collaboration.”

 

Who is our Escobar? Why hasn’t Colorado been able to grease the skids for federal reimbursements like Texas, New York and New Mexico?

And why is the federal government paying to ship migrants here, and then refusing to shoulder their full costs when they get here, especially when Johnston says Denver is experiencing the worst crush of migrants in the country?

 

It certainly appears to our reporters that the federal government is helping border states like Texas and big powerful states like New York deal with this crisis much better than they are helping interior states like Colorado.

 

At the end of the day, is that the federal government’s fault, or Colorado’s?

 

Or both?