I'm Jonathan Kapart and welcome to Kapart. Denver is contending with a humanitarian and

fiscal crisis as the city of 713,000 people has absorbed nearly 40,000 migrants and little more than a year.

And the new mayor elected just seven months ago said last week, Denver is, quote,

hitting a breaking point.

In this conversation first recorded for Washington Post Live on February 14th as part of its series election 2024, the issues.

Mayor Mike Johnston talks about the migrants who have been sent to his city by Texas Governor Greg Abbott and what they need most.

And the mayor talks about what the bipartisan Senate Immigration Bill would have done for his city and who's to blame

for its failure to even get a vote. We now have to get used to what we have to do in

light of the new Trump border policy because this is now Trump's policy. This is the policy he wanted to stay in place.

The chaos of no structure, no support, no resources, or border cities or for us was what he and the

House Republican leadership chose.

I think that's a great catastrophe for the country. So before we talk about your city let me get your reaction to the big thing that

happened yesterday and that is the impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary

Alejandro Mayorkas. Yeah, I think that is both a distraction and I think it is a tragedy given what we're facing right now.

I think what I say is the only reason cities like ours survived

through the fall and much of this summer was because of the actions my York has took to

help cities like ours when I met with him in the summer and we talked about how urgent the

need was for work authorization

because we had people arriving in the city who couldn't work. He took action you know he

extended temporary protective status to Venezuela's allowing those folks who arrived to be able to work and that

helped people successfully integrate into the country get a job get a place to live I think what

people agree with on all sides for me is when folks arrive in these cities they

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