EL PASO COUNTY — Where’s the bus?
El Paso County Commissioners held a press conference Wednesday to bring attention to migrants they say were dropped off in Colorado Springs the last weekend of January.
“We did hear about the first bus that did come into our community. I am told that that bus, the families that came did come from Denver,” said El Paso County Commissioner, Longinos Gonzalez.
News 5 asked the county for evidence of the bus.
A reply from the county communications office said they got the information from the city.
Colorado Springs city leaders said they do not know anything about a bus and they do not have evidence that the migrants were sent here by anyone official in Denver.
“They're working their way down here in an uncoordinated manner,” said Colorado Springs Deputy Chief of Staff, Ryan Trujillo, “So the agencies are not coordinating the transportation of these individuals. They're making their way down here as individuals.”
Salvation Army Divisional Secretary for El Paso County Capt. Doug Hanson told News 5 they reached out to the Mayor over the weekend to let him know their non-profit was seeing more migrants coming into town. Hanson said so far 23 migrant families have shown up at their facility since December 9th. He told News 5's Dianne Derby a bus with migrants did not show up over the weekend and none has ever shown up at their facility.
In comparison, data shows Denver dealing with more than 40,000 migrants sent to the city.
El Paso Commissioners said, “We need to draw a line in the sand.”
They made it clear El Paso County is not a sanctuary for migrants and offering aid to migrants allows the federal government to get away with ignoring an issue it should be working to resolve.
City leaders in Colorado Springs agree with the county that this city and county are not a sanctuary for migrants. Both say there are inadequate resources to handle an influx of migrants.
“We're not inviting this crisis to Colorado Springs, we hope that migrants don't arrive in large numbers to our community, although hope is not an effective strategy. And so we need to be prepared for the worst case scenario,” said Trujillo.
A small number of migrants brings Colorado Springs actively into the national debate over migration.
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