Mayor Mike Johnston is confused. 

Denver’s mayor wants to stand athwart the city’s boundaries to stop people from leaving. His problem is he’s focused on the wrong people. 

Apparently seeking to bolster his progressive bona-fides, Mayor Mike recently staged a public hissy fit about the incoming Trump administration’s plan to deport illegal immigrants. In a bizarre rant he had to walk back, he said he would deploy the already understaffed Denver Police Department to stop federal immigration agents. 

If his goal was to get national attention as a pro-illegal immigrant warrior, it worked. 

Badly. 

He managed to shine the spotlight on the widespread failures of Colorado’s capital city to reverse its decline. He also reminded citizens the massive influx of migrants has stretched the municipal and school district budgets beyond the breaking point. 

Quickly realizing he was over his skis, he said well maybe citizens would rise up and he would lead the resistance.

Resist what? 

Deporting the 1.3 million illegals for whom the federal government, under President Joe Biden, has already issued final orders of removal? Or fighting the departure of the minority of migrants who commit crimes?

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It would be nice if Mayor Mike had as much passion to resist — and reverse — the steady decay of the city he was elected to lead. 

Mike Johnston’s problem isn’t preventing illegals from leaving. It’s bringing back workers, diners and shoppers who have already left — and aren’t eager to return.

A study by the Common Sense Institute (CSI) looked at downtown Denver’s recovery from the pandemic.

What will not surprise anyone who has been downtown recently — Denver has the lowest foot traffic of 16 major cities studied by the University of Toronto. One reason is Denver has the highest office vacancy rate among Front Range cities, with one-quarter of offices sitting empty — and, oddly, the highest office lease rates. 

And worse, the state of Denver’s downtown also discourages people who do not live or work in the city from venturing out for an evening. 

This is what makes Johnston’s assertion he would deploy Denver cops to stop the deportation of illegals even more out of touch. Crime in Denver is sky high and that’s where the mayor needs to focus his police force. 

The CSI study showed there were 1,150 crimes in the third quarter of 2024, the highest of any third quarter since before the pandemic. This tracks with a Downtown Denver Partnership survey, which CSI cites, that says a major issue afflicting downtown is a lack of a sense of safety and security. 

As disturbing as these facts are, downtown’s decline wasn’t caused by the pandemic. COVID merely hastened and deepened it.  

Those of us who worked downtown pre-pandemic experienced the rise in homelessness, vagrancy, drug use, aggressive panhandling and more. 

Years before the pandemic struck, a leader in the business community told me about how he was excited to show off Denver as a destination for meetings and conventions. He said he was going to bus site selectors from the convention center Hilton at 15th and California to Guard and Grace restaurant at 18th and California. 

Driving them three blocks?

“Well I can’t take the chance of having them walk and encounter who knows what by the 16th Street Mall,” he said. 

The city then was so bad it had to hide the dysfunction on display downtown — like hanging a picture in a weird place in your living room to cover a gaping hole in the wall. 

Wouldn’t something that bad be a wake-up call for the city?

The elected leaders hit snooze. 

Others, like the Downtown Denver Partnership, have sincerely fought to reverse the continually rising tide of decay. But there is only so much one organization can do.

Denver, like too many American cities governed by naïve progressives, has been rendered unworthy of good people who want to live, work and play in Colorado’s capital city.  

Decades ago, Denver Mayor Frederico Peña challenged citizens to “imagine a great city.” Now people who make a great city thrive are rejecting downtown in droves because they can’t even imagine a decent city anymore. 

Sean Duffy, a former deputy chief of staff to Gov. Bill Owens, is a communications and media relations strategist and ghostwriter based in the Denver area.