Lawful immigrants left out in the cold under sanctuary policies

Cities across America, including Denver, have allocated millions of dollars to house and support illegal immigrants. While sanctuary policies aim to provide housing, legal aid, and work authorization to undocumented migrants, those who follow legal pathways into the country face a system designed to keep them in perpetual limbo. This imbalance raises a critical question: Why aren’t cities investing similar resources in legal immigrants who have abided by the rules?

The foreign student’s plight

Consider a foreign student who arrives in the U.S. in pursuit of education and opportunity. International students pay significantly higher tuition than their domestic counterparts, often without access to financial aid. They graduate with degrees in high-demand fields and apply for Optional Practical Training (OPT), a program that allows them to work temporarily in the U.S. If their degree is in a STEM field, they receive a three-year OPT period; otherwise, they only get one year. Their next step is securing an H1B work visa, a process that is anything but simple.

The H1B system is a lottery, not a merit-based process. Regardless of their qualifications or employer demand, applicants have no guarantee of securing a visa. The odds are dismal, only 1 in 1,500 applicants are selected in some cases, making the process nearly impossible for many talented individuals. Even those who obtain an H1B visa face further uncertainty. The next step, applying for a green card is even more restrictive. Due to the 7% per-country cap, Indian applicants face a wait time of 195 years for permanent residency. This means that unless immigration laws change, many highly skilled, legally employed immigrants will never achieve green card status, despite decades of contributing to the economy.

Sanctuary cities prioritizing illegal immigration

Contrast this with the treatment of illegal immigrants. Upon arrival, they receive immediate aid in sanctuary cities like Denver. They are provided with housing, food assistance, legal aid, and work authorization through government-funded programs such as Denver’s “Newcomers Playbook.” These benefits, subsidized by taxpayer dollars, ease their transition and allow them to remain in the country with fewer restrictions than legal immigrants.

Work permits for illegal immigrants come with significantly fewer hurdles than those faced by legal migrants. An H1B visa holder must work strictly in their field of study, cannot switch employers without sponsorship, and cannot exceed 60 days of unemployment without losing legal status. In contrast, an illegal immigrant granted work authorization can work in any industry, change jobs freely, and is not bound by the same constraints. This imbalance makes legal immigration an unnecessarily arduous process while offering more flexibility to those who bypassed it altogether.

Even within the education system, undocumented immigrants are prioritized over legal visa holders. Colorado’s Advancing Students for a Stronger Economy Tomorrow (ASSET) law grants in-state tuition to undocumented students if they meet residency requirements. Meanwhile, legal immigrants on visas such as F-1 (student visa) and H-4 (dependent visa) do not qualify, despite following lawful pathways into the country.

The economic and social consequences

This policy imbalance not only fosters resentment among legal immigrants but also weakens the credibility of the immigration system. Denver alone is projected to spend $90 million this fiscal year to manage the influx of illegal immigrants. These funds are diverted from essential city services, including housing assistance for American citizens and long-term residents.

If cities are serious about supporting immigrants, they must also invest in legal pathways by:

Raising employer awareness about visa sponsorship opportunities.
Simplifying and expediting green card applications, particularly for high-skilled immigrants.
Advocating for federal immigration reform that prioritizes legal compliance and faster processing times.

Instead, the current system rewards those who bypass legal channels while trapping those who follow the rules in endless bureaucracy.

A call for basic fairness

America’s immigration policies should not punish those who follow the law while rewarding those who do not. It is time for a shift in focus. The conversation about immigration should include those who are here legally paying taxes, working hard, and contributing to the country’s economic growth. If cities are truly committed to supporting immigrants, they must ensure that resources are directed not only to those here illegally, but also to those who have abided by the system.

Legal immigrants should not be afterthoughts in a debate dominated by discussions about illegal immigration. They, too, deserve support, opportunity, and a fair chance at the American Dream.

Bhav Ninder Singh is a litigator from India, currently serving as a legal intern at the Independence Institute in Denver. He holds an LL.M. from the University of California, Irvine, and is a graduate of the National Law University, Delhi, India

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Jena Griswold’s dangerous double-standard on privacy

By Jon Caldara

Colorado’s Secretary of State Jena Griswold is responsible for running the state’s TRACER system. This is the public database where campaigns must file their contribution and expenditure disclosures. If you wanna see who’s funding a candidate, that’s where you go.

But if you went there last week, you would have seen it was “down for maintenance.”

That was a lie. There was no “maintenance.”

You can’t handle the truth

Griswold took it down to have the home addresses of elected officials redacted from the site. In the wake of the shootings of state legislators in Minnesota, many of Colorado’s elected officials asked her to do it.

So why not just tell us that? We would have more than understood the truth.

This database is required by law. Scrubbing it might or might not be a good policy. She might or might not have the authority to do it. But to fib and say it was “down for maintenance” just adds to the reasons trust in government is at an all-time low. They can’t even tell us the truth on this reasonable feat.

In fact, we might not have known any of this falsehood had it not been for a scoop by Axios Denver’s John Frank. Only when confronted did the Jena’s office cop to shutting it down to redact information. Yes, a tiny lie. But that’s the gateway drug to big lies.

A couple of years back, the Colorado Department of Transportation didn’t want folks driving on a high mountain pass during a snowstorm, so they lied and said it was closed. A fabrication, it was open and fine.

There is a pretension and arrogance with those it’s-for-your-own-good lies. And it conditions citizens to let government play parent to them.

It takes a certain amount of arrogance to use the machinery of government to promote inaccuracies and lies (insert Trump joke here). Government should be the record holder and storehouse of truth.

The secretary of state, county clerks, law enforcement, auditors and researchers must be wholly committed to recording only the full truth, no matter what.

Where does my property line end and yours begin? Who owns that car? When was someone born? When did he die? We must trust government records or pretty much everything — everything — falls apart.

But now records can be redacted and altered.

Changing one’s gender on a Colorado birth certificate is as easy as changing your mailing address. Was a person born a boy on a certain date? Who knows? Those records can now be legally falsified.

If changing birth certificates is legal, I need to change the birth date on mine. I identify as 67 despite the government record saying I’m 60. I want my Social Security checks now.

A double-standard for donors

We’re told redacting TRACER records was a matter of safety for those in politics. But lots of us are in politics. Why only protect the elected?

These records still show the home addresses of everyone of us who donated to a campaign. Aren’t we worth the same level of safety and protection?

If an elected official is targeted for an act of violence, wouldn’t those who paid for him to get into office also be possible targets? Why does Griswold protect the privacy of her elected colleagues but not their supporters?

There’s a reason why people want to give their money anonymously — to save their lives and livelihoods.

During the bloody civil rights battles, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, NAACP, had to go to court to protect their donor’s privacy. Why? If doxed, those who financed their mission would have been lynched.

A few years back, there was a mass shooting at a Planned Parenthood office in Colorado Springs. Fortunately, Planned Parenthood also keeps their donors private. If that shooter could look up their funders’ addresses, they might have been targeted, too.

Every year the legislature tries to pass bills to end donor privacy, labeling such donations as “soft money.” “Soft money” is the pejorative term for “political speech I want to support, but don’t want to be killed over.”

How fun it will be to watch those very legislators who pressured Jena Griswold to redact their home addresses to turn around and demand others involved in politics be treated differently and stay easy targets.

Privacy and security for me. Exposure for thee.

Jena Griswold’s dangerous double-standard on privacy

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