For now.
We'll see if their increasingly insane gambles pay off in the end.
The Denver City Council is doubling down on policies that offer free shelter and food to immigrants who cross the southern border illegally, which officials in west Texas say have been the primary draw to Colorado's most populous city.
In an overview Tuesday of the city's response to the crisis -- the so-called "Newcomer Program" -- councilmembers learned that the immigrants will receive, at taxpayers' expense, six months of rental, food and utility assistance, a computer, prepaid cell phone and metro bus passes.
In other words: We're paying them a salary for breaking our laws.
"We designed this program to be holistic," said Sarah Plastino, who is in charge of the city's response.
Whenever someone starts using the word "holistic," hold on to your wallets and try to cling to your sanity, because it's going to get stupid fast.
...
About 760 immigrants -- Plastino told councilmembers in attendance -- are enrolled in the extended assistance program. Her office hopes to increase that number to 800 in the coming weeks, she said.
This first cohort is expected to "graduate" from the program in December or January, Plastino said.
It's all part of a new strategy that pivots away from an emergency response to a long-term plan, a move that came on the heels of Mayor Mike Johnston trying to rein in spending and find the $90 million cost to pay for the immigrant response.
Over the past 17 months, Denver had received nearly 42,000 immigrants.
That is roughly the size of Brighton, which is located about 20 miles northeast of downtown Denver and is the county seat of neighboring Adams County.
Not all have stayed.
But plane, train and bus tickets purchased for immigrants to travel to their final U.S. destination suggest about half may have.
Their arrival has pushed the city's finances to a breaking point. To finance its response, the city had cut some services, frozen hiring and decided against planting flowers to save money.
...
To date, Denver's response has cost taxpayers about $70 million -- and counting.
Early in the crisis, city leaders decided that Denver taxpayers would assume the cost to temporarily feed, shelter and transport immigrants to their final destination.
While Denver officials long speculated that the city's proximity to the U.S. border, its transportation hub, which connects to major cities across the country, and status as a "sanctuary city" were the draw for immigrants, El Paso officials in west Texas point to something else: free shelter and tickets for onward travel.
So many racist black people objecting to social services being diverted to non-citizen "newcomers."
Do you think Jake Tapper will pontificate about how racist he thinks black people are?
What about the Hispanics who want illegal immigration stopped, Fake Jake? Are they racist against Brown People (TM) too?
Invasionary armies are getting tired of waiting for Border Patrol coming to pick them up to bring them into the country illegally, so they've resorted to self-help.
Illegal immigrants crossing into the United States at the southern border were spotted calling for rides from Lyft as they grew tired of waiting for Border Patrol agents to come pick them up.
Fox News was on the ground in Jacumba, California, observing migrants who had come in across the southern border, and were waiting for several hours to be picked up and processed by Border Patrol agents.
Some Colombians got sick of waiting for the feds to come pick them up, so they called a ride on the ride-sharing app and hopped in the car when it arrived.
It was not clear if the driver knew that they were picking up illegal immigrants.
The moment is a glimpse of how overwhelmed Border Patrol agents have been as they continue to deal with high numbers in the San Diego sector.
Fox witnessed groups of illegal immigrants from Pakistan, China, India and Turkey wandering. There was little aid for Border Patrol from the liberal state of California, in stark contrast to Texas, which has launched its own operation to build infrastructure and block illegal immigrants from entering the U.S.
The lack of security shocked even some illegal immigrants. One Turkish migrant, who told Fox he had paid around $10,000 to a cartel, said that Americans should be concerned by what he had seen.
"In fact, American people is right, completely true. Who comes into this country? They don't know. OK, I'm good. But how if they're not good? How if they're killers, psychopath, else? No guarantee of that."
"Like, no security, no security check, no background check," the migrant said, referring to his crossing into the United States.
He said he worried about who is crossing the border, because "people are not normal."
Secretary of Population Replacement Mayorkas says he's doing an "extraordinary" job waving in the invaders.
During an interview with CBS News Immigration and Politics Reporter Camilo Montoya-Galvez, portions of which were released on Tuesday, Mayorkas claimed that the Biden administration has "done an extraordinary job to deal with an unprecedented level of migration," and that the unprecedented levels of "migration" are due to other factors. No doubt "other factors" include Donald Trump. Right, Alejandro?
I'm not sure if Mayorkas is "just" a compulsive liar or a full-blown pathological liar.