6 westword.com WESTWORD AUGUST 21-27, 2025 | MUSIC | CAFE | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | NEWS | LETTERS | CONTENTS | Rocky Refuge HOW THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT HAS WEAPONIZED “SANCTUARY” STATUS AGAINST DENVER. BY BENNITO L. KELT Y What is a sanctuary city, and how did Denver become one? President Donald Trump’s fi rst adminis- tration included Denver on a list of “sanctuary jurisdictions” in 2017, but Denver’s federal status as a “sanctuary jurisdiction” is now putting increased pressure on the city’s gov- ernment, with the White House withholding federal funding and Mayor Mike Johnston called before Congress earlier this year to testify about the city’s immigration policies. The Trump administration has included Denver on a sanctuary list twice in recent months; the fi rst time was in May, along with nearly 500 other “sanctuary” cities, counties and states. However, that list was withdrawn because it included numerous Republican- leaning communities like Weld and El Paso counties. A revised roster came out on August 5 that listed just Denver and 31 other cities, counties and states, including Colorado. Ac- cording to the Department of Justice, the new list was “based on actions and policies that materially impede enforcement of federal immigration statutes and regulations.” On August 15, United States Attorney Gen- eral Pam Bondi increased the pressure, send- ing letters to the 32 “sanctuary” jurisdictions that repeated the threat of withholding federal funding and also noted that the administration might seek further legal action for obstructing the work of federal immigration agents. In response to Bondi’s letter, the Denver mayor’s offi ce released a statement saying that “Denver complies with all laws — fed- eral, state and local — and we will continue to defend our rights as well as the rights of our residents.” In a statement to CBS Colorado, Governor Jared Polis’s offi ce said that “Colo- rado is not a sanctuary state. The Governor continues to be frustrated by this mistaken and incorrect label,” and that Colorado is “cooperating with federal law enforcement.” Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been active in Colorado this year, with several ICE arrests and raids challenging Denver’s sanctuary image. Agents, many wearing masks, have arrested hundreds of people in the metro area, and the majority of people arrested have no criminal records. The agency plans to open new Colorado detention facilities in Ignacio, Hudson and Walsenburg to go along with its facility in Aurora, where about 1,400 immigrants are detained. Although the term “sanctuary city” is all over the national news now, the term’s ties to Denver stretch back decades. Here’s how we got here, and why the Trump administration is using the “sanctuary” label to go after the city. What Is a Sanctuary City? According to Global Refuge, a national nonprofi t, the “sanctuary” designation started in 1971, when the local government of Berke- ley, California, declared that town a sanctuary for previously deployed U.S. sailors who didn’t want to return to the Vietnam War. However, the term “sanctuary city” is usually traced back to policies passed by U.S. cities in the 1980s to protect Central American refugees. At the time, El Salvadorans and Guatema- lans were fl eeing civil wars in their countries, and many were admitted through the U.S. Refugee Act. Many of the refugees came to the U.S. without permanent legal status, so a reli- gious sanctuary movement sprang up to help them, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, a Denver-based network. Other city governments started to join the sanctuary movement. In 1985, Chicago Mayor Harold Washington signed an execu- tive order prohibiting cooperation between local offi cials and federal immigration au- thorities. In 1989, San Francisco passed a law banning the use of city funds to help federal immigration law enforcement gather information on people’s immigration status. Current Denver Water CEO Alan Salazar was the chief of staff under then-Denver Mayor Michael Hancock. He says that Den- ver has been labeled a sanctuary city “since the Wellington Webb days,” which ran from 1991 to 2003. Back then, Mayor Webb’s ad- ministration broadened the term to mean a city that’s “a safe haven for people that are undocumented,” and local leadership used it with pride. But it soon took on “a negative connotation for the city” in some political circles, according to Salazar. In 2002, former Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo slapped Denver with the “sanctuary city” label because Webb al- lowed ID cards from Mexico to be accepted as official identification, Salazar recalls. Although the policy was banned at the state level in 2003, Tancredo and other Colorado Republicans continued hurling the term at Denver, especially after the murder of Denver Detective Donald Young by an un- documented immigrant in 2005. In 2015, 32-year-old Kathryn Steinle was shot and killed in San Francisco by an undocu- mented immigrant. The charges against the man who killed her were eventually dropped over a lack of evidence, and the term “sanctu- ary cities” became the target of Republicans entering the presidential race. The next year, in his fi rst presidential campaign, Trump started referring to Steinle’s death as a reason for wanting to go after sanctuary cities. When Trump took offi ce in January 2017, his administration began de- fi ning sanctuary jurisdic- tions as local governments that refuse to work with ICE. At the same time, Michael Hancock denied that Denver was a sanc- tuary city because “there was no legal defi nition,” and the city had never re- ally labeled itself a sanctu- ary city, Salazar says. According to the Fed- eration for American Immigration Reform, a think tank that seeks to reduce immigration, sanctuary cities are a growing trend. It reports that the number of sanc- tuary cities in the U.S. went from just a dozen in the ‘90s to 340 in 2016, 564 in 2018, and more than 1,000 in 2025. But who’s in charge of deciding which jurisdic- tions are “sanctuaries,” and which aren’t? The “sanctuary” designation is blatantly partisan, particularly at the federal level. Every city on the DOJ’s August 5 sanctuary jurisdiction list has a Democratic mayor, and all but one of the states have Democratic governors, with Nevada the lone exception. Why Is Denver Considered a Sanctuary City? In 2014, under the Obama administra- tion, ICE started keeping track of cities that turned down detainers, or requests for local law enforcement to hold inmates past their release date to investigate their im- migration status. Every year, ICE releases this data and marks some cities as having “policy/legislation that limits or prohibits cooperation with ICE.” In 2015 and 2016, Denver was among the top ten jurisdictions turning down detainers and was reported to have laws against helping ICE. The Hancock administration insisted that Denver didn’t have policies limiting coopera- tion with ICE, and justifi ed refusing ICE de- tainers by citing a 2013 federal court case that defends cities from having to honor detainers. When Trump took offi ce in 2017, he signed an executive order stating “sanctuary jurisdic- tions” shouldn’t receive federal funding and said his administration would keep tabs on ICE detainer data to come up with a list of sanctuary jurisdictions. In August 2017, Denver City Council passed a law banning city employees, in- cluding police offi cers, from asking about a person’s immigration status and from using city resources to assist with federal immigra- tion enforcement. The 2017 law also prohibits honoring ICE detainers, according to the Den- ver Offi ce of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs “Denver will send a clear message that ev- ery person, no matter their immigration status, can feel safe when interacting with the city and law enforcement,” Hancock said at the time. A few months later, in January 2018, then-U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions threatened to subpoena 23 jurisdictions, including Denver, over their immigration enforcement policies, but the subpoena never arrived. Still, the DOJ denied Denver a $700,000 justice assistance grant to sup- port local law enforcement, prosecution and crime prevention that Sessions had already approved the previous fi scal year. In August 2018, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Trump’s executive order threatening to keep federal funding from “sanctuary jurisdictions” was unconstitu- tional. In October, the DOJ handed over the $700,000 grant Denver was expecting. In May 2019, Colorado lawmakers passed the Protect Colorado Residents From Federal Government Overreach law, banning local and state law enforcement from detaining people on behalf of ICE. However, the Trump administration held off on making public threats against Colorado as it had with Denver. From late 2022 to early 2024, more than 43,000 migrants, mostly from Venezuela, came to Denver. Most of them had crossed the border by secur- NEWS continued on page 8 KEEP UP ON DENVER NEWS AT WESTWORD.COM/NEWS Mayor Mike Johnston is fi ghting back against Trump’s attack on sanctuary cities. BENNITO L. KELT Y
