Shahnaz Hussaini, who was a military attorney before she was forced to flee Afghanistan, fills out paperwork while she cradles her son, Anil, at an asylum clinic set up at a Northglenn mosque. June 4, 2022. (Kevin J. Beaty/Denverite)
Immigration — who’s coming to the country, how they arrive here and what it means for the nation’s identity — has long been a top concern for many voters. Our ongoing Voter Voices survey shows it remains so among large groups of Coloradans, and especially for self-identified conservatives. The jump in arrivals in recent years has pushed it to the front of the national conversation in new and urgent ways.
Political rhetoric tends to lump immigrants into a single bucket — that of undocumented immigrants. In reality, foreign-born residents in Colorado and elsewhere span a variety of situations and legal statuses. They include naturalized citizens and lawful permanent residents (green card holders) as well as people allowed to live and work in the U.S. for the time being through Temporary Protected Status or the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. There are also people fleeing war, violence or oppression, who arrived in the U.S. as refugees or are here seeking asylum. All of these groups are in the country legally or have some protection from deportation. Among them only naturalized citizens can vote.
In Colorado, U.S. Census survey data from 2023 put the total number of foreign-born residents at just under 10% of the state’s nearly 6 million residents or about 565,000 people. Nearly half were naturalized citizens.
Congressional candidates and ballot measures.
But, it’s unclear how many foreign-born residents are here illegally. Estimates put the number at somewhere around 150,000, depending on the source.
And most of this data precedes the recent arrivals of tens of thousands of immigrants and asylees, primarily from Venezuela. At one point in the past year, Denver leaders estimated the city was seeing more new arrivals per capita than any other non-border community in the country. And while the pace of arrivals has slowed dramatically in 2024, by the start of July, the city had — by its own calculations — provided aid to 42,392 new immigrants, at a cost of more than $72 million.
Coloradans who responded to the Voter Voices survey expressed a range of opinions on immigration as wide as the variety of immigrants who live here. Some want to see mass deportation and a closed border. Some want to grant legal status to DACA recipients and the undocumented spouses of American citizens. Some want bipartisan immigration reform that strengthens the border while offering those already here a path to citizenship.
If immigration is a top concern for you — no matter where your politics lie — here is where your vote has the most impact.
The presidential race
Immigration has been a flashpoint throughout the presidential race, with the two major party candidates laying out distinctly different visions for how they would use the power of the office.
Former President Donald Trump has pledged to oversee “the largest mass deportation” in U.S. history, and said it would start in Aurora, Colorado, and Springfield, Ohio. To carry that out, the Republican presidential candidate said he would call up the National Guard and use the Alien Enemies Act to summarily remove people from the country.
Trump has also promised to revive policies from his first administration, including denying visas to people from certain countries, ending refugee admissions and building the southern border wall. He would push to end birthright citizenship for children born in the U.S. to undocumented parents. And he would terminate humanitarian parole programs that have allowed people to live and work in the United States on a temporary basis.
For her part, Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris has focused more on policies that would specifically affect new arrivals at the border, and has said less about those already in the country.
She has campaigned vigorously on her support for the bipartisan border deal that stalled out in Congress earlier this year. It would have increased funding for border patrol and detention facilities, raised the standard for granting asylum and sped up the removal of people whose claims are rejected. The package would also have created a quarter of a million new visa slots for immigrants who come for jobs or family.
Harris’ campaign has not said whether she still supports proposals she laid out during her 2019 presidential run to grant citizenship to Dreamers and protect millions of other undocumented immigrants from deportation.
The congressional races
Fundamentally, immigration policy for the country is set at the federal level, through laws passed by Congress and orders issued by the president.
However, for nearly 40 years now, Congress has been gridlocked on this issue. The last reforms, passed in 1986 during the Reagan administration, outlawed the hiring of undocumented workers, put new resources into immigration enforcement, and granted legal status to millions of people already living in the country.
Since then, numerous bipartisan reform efforts have foundered. Most recently, a Senate deal earlier this year to strengthen border enforcement and reduce new asylum claims fell apart when it was opposed by House Republicans.
The members Colorado elects to Congress will join this decades-long debate. While in recent years most immigration negotiations have taken place in the Senate, the House has a critical say in whether any proposal could ever become law.
State legislative races
While Colorado’s lawmakers have no power to do anything about the legal status of undocumented people in the state, the laws they pass can have tangible impacts on the lives those residents lead here.
Over the past decade under Democratic control, the state has started allowing people without legal status to apply for driver’s licenses and pay in-state tuition for public colleges and universities. Colorado requires health insurers that offer plans on its exchange make them available to all people regardless of immigration status. Starting next year, the state will start covering undocumented pregnant women and their babies under Medicaid. The state has also started the Office of New Americans, to help new arrivals access aid and integrate into their communities.
Colorado also restricts local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement in a number of ways. Policies like that have led to charges that Colorado is a “sanctuary state,” although there is no universally agreed upon definition for that term.
Local races
The arrival of tens of thousands of new immigrants in the last two years has thrown a spotlight onto cities, as the front line for welcoming — or rejecting — them.
At the same time that Denver was cutting some services to cover the cost of sheltering asylum-seekers, other communities in Colorado passed resolutions declaring themselves not to be sanctuary cities. Many cities made it clear they would not offer any formal help to new arrivals.
Most recently, Aurora has been in the national spotlight for claims, made primarily by Republican politicians and in conservative media, that Venezuelan gang members are terrorizing the residents of entire apartment buildings and neighborhoods.
However, local law enforcement says the concern is much more limited. And residents of those apartments tell journalists their big concern is with the decrepit condition of their apartments and the lack of response from their landlord.
When it comes to local policies, elected officials also have some power to dictate whether or not the government employees in their offices communicate or cooperate with immigration enforcement.
Ballot measures
In Denver, Referred Question 2T would eliminate citizenship requirements for Denver police officers and firefighters.
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