DENVER — The City of Denver doesn’t have a long-term plan to help migrants arriving from the southern border, but it is willing to pay tens of millions of dollars to have someone else handle the response for the next couple of months.
On Wednesday, Denver City Council advanced a proposal to outsource the city’s entire response to the migrant crisis to a private company.
With a $40 million contract on the table, two executives from the McLean, Va., based company GardaWorld Federal Services told a council committee that their answers can help solve Denver’s migrant crisis.
"We will not share with U.S. ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) any information related to migrants served under the contract," said Dave Watson, senior vice president of GardaWorld. "We will only hire qualified staff that are properly trained."
The meeting came with promises to open a shelter for 1,000 people and to provide food, services, medical attention and even tickets for migrants who want to travel somewhere else. The company is Denver’s top choice to outsource its entire response to migrants arriving from the southern border. It’ll cost around $20 million through end of this year.
But there are questions.
"In trying to do some due diligence on who is GardaWorld. I have yet to come up with something, a newspaper article, saying you’re doing this well," said Councilmember Paul Kashmann as he asked GardaWorld executives for examples of the work they've done in the past.
The city points to the work GardaWorld Federal Services has done in San Antonio, El Paso and Chicago helping cities respond to influxes of migrants.
Contracts also show GardaWorld was involved in a program in Florida led by Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) to fly migrants to Democrat-led cities. Today GardaWorld responded, saying they only provide medical assistance to Florida. The company’s president said GardaWorld would not be involved in flying migrants out of state if Denver awards them the contract.
"We are aware of news reports claiming our involvement in relocating migrants across state lines, specifically with the state of Florida. To clarify, we have not provided such services. We hold contracts with the State of Florida, with the Florida Division of Emergency Management, to provide medical, disaster response and transportation services," a letter written by Pete Dordal read. "We understand the concerns that interstate migration relocation can cause and we will not pursue this type of service so that we may focus on our critical work supporting the City of Denver."
While the program could have a $20 million price tag through the end of the year, the contract could cost up to $40 million through March of next year. But one of the concerns raised Wednesday was that only price accounts for migrants just arriving in Denver and their first couple weeks in the city. There is no long-term plan or budget for how to help people integrate into Colorado and get services for months to come.
It's a concern raised multiple times at the council meeting.
"Where is that staffing and how is it that we’re planning that in our budget in the same way that you’re planning for this contract for sheltering and the emergency?" said Councilmember Robin Kniech.
For seven months, Denver has relied heavily on community group to help migrants. That would change with this contract.
"It is a good idea to bring someone, one entity, that only focusses on that. It doesn’t have to be form out of town," said Yoli Casas, executive director of Vive Wellness.
Vive Wellness is an organization that’s led the charge to aid migrants. Casas said the city needs to learn from what went wrong when thousands of people arrived every day without a place to stay. She hopes whoever is chosen leans on them to help.
"I’m very thankful for our city council. I really think they understand and want the best for our community," said Casas. "My concern is I don’t believe they have experience of working with the people from the inside. That human touch, the culture."
The plan says GardaWorld would open up a shelter for up to 1,000 people. Of course, that needs a pretty big space to do that. We’re told they are currently touring three different sites here in Denver, though they haven’t announced where.
Now that the proposal has advanced out of the committee, it will be brought before the full city council. That will likely happen sometime in July.
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