DENVER (KDVR) — Denver’s migrant arrivals are back to levels unseen since a swell in March and earlier in January.
City and non-city shelters were housing 1,347 migrants as of May 15, according to the city’s dashboard. The recent uptick in migrant arrivals corresponds to the end of a federal asylum restriction known as Title 42.
Denver is providing emergency shelter only to new arrivals from the southern border who have been in contact with U.S. immigration officials, according to the city. And emergency shelter will be offered only if there is capacity, which has been increasingly limited.
Previously, the number of migrants in city and non-city facilities matched the height of a March surge and the downswing of a winter surge, during which facilities housed nearly 2,000 migrants.
Both the winter and spring surges in Denver corresponded to upticks in encounters at the southwestern U.S. border, according to the most recent records from U.S. Customs and Border Patrol.
Mayor Michael Hancock and other mayors in major U.S. cities are pleading with the federal government for more funding to help with the arrivals.