During the April 4 broadcast of his 630 KHOW-AM show, Peter Boyles again promoted the falsehood that Denver is a “sanctuary city” for illegal immigrants. In fact, as Colorado Media Matters repeatedly has noted, Denver is not a sanctuary city, according to former Denver City Attorney Cole Finegan, Colorado statute, and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.

While discussing Denver City Council candidate Waldo Benavidez's campaign for the District 9 seat held by Judy Montero, Boyles asked Benavidez, “Do you think Denver, Colorado, is a sanctuary city?” Benavidez replied, “It is a sanctuary city.” He then went on to claim falsely that former Mayor Wellington Webb's administration “passed an ordinance regarding that.” After Benavidez said he would try to pass an ordinance banning Denver's purported “sanctuary city” status, Boyles told Benavidez, “I'd love to see you get the seat.”

However, as Colorado Media Matters has noted, a May 13, 2005, Denver Post article (accessed through the Nexis database) reported that, during a debate on the issue with U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-CO) on The Peter Boyles Show, Finegan denied that any official Webb administration orders made Denver a sanctuary city:

During the radio show, Tancredo and Finegan sparred over two executive orders signed by former Mayor Wellington Webb that Tancredo points to as evidence Denver has a sanctuary policy. One, signed in 1998, prohibits discrimination against foreign nationals in delivering city services. The other, signed in 2002, established Denver's policy for accepting some forms of foreign ID cards.

Those orders do not discourage cooperation with immigration authorities and, therefore, do not represent a sanctuary policy, Finegan said.

Though Boyles and Tancredo argued at the time that “comments Webb made while signing the executive order in 1998 amounted to a de facto sanctuary policy,” the Post made clear that regardless of the legal effects of Webb's oral proclamations accompanying his signing of the orders, his “prepared remarks from the event refer[ed] only to legal immigrants.”

Further, as Colorado Media Matters has noted, a Colorado statute enacted May 1, 2006, prohibiting so-called sanctuary policies defines such policies as “local government ordinances or policies that prohibit local officials, including peace officers, from communicating or cooperating with federal officials with regard to the immigration status of any person within the state.” In contrast to Benavidez's assertion that Denver “is a sanctuary city,” a June 11, 2006, Rocky Mountain News article quoted Carl Rusnok, an ICE spokesman for Colorado, saying, “There aren't any cities in Colorado that refuse to call us. ... I know of no Colorado city that has a policy against calling ICE.”

A 2004 report by the nonpartisan U.S. Congressional Research Service identified “sanctuary cities” as those that have adopted “a 'don't ask-don't tell' policy where they don't require their employees, including law enforcement officers, to report to federal officials aliens who may be illegally present in the country.”

Boyles encouraged Benavidez to run for city council because, as Boyles claimed, questions about so-called sanctuary city policies “never get asked.” But Boyles did not mention that he failed to ask Webb about such policies when he interviewed him on March 28 on KBDI Channel 12's Colorado Inside Out Live -- even though Boyles had attacked Webb during his radio show about so-called sanctuary cities when Webb was not present.

From the April 4 broadcast of 630 KHOW-AM's The Peter Boyles Show:

BOYLES: Waldo, Waldo do you think at this time -- serious question, because you're going to get heat for this. Do you think Denver, Colorado, is a sanctuary city?

BENAVIDEZ: It is a sanctuary city. I remember back during the Webb administration when they had a -- the city council met and passed an ordinance regarding that. I don't remember the ordinance number now, but there is an ordinance number.

BOYLES: All right, having said that, what kind of, do you think -- well. Continue; I'm sorry.

BENAVIDEZ: Well, one of the things I'm going to do when I get elected, because we have a lay-down city council. All they do is rubber-stamp whatever the mayor wants to do. And, and all he's doing is passing nanny-type ordinances and, and getting things like that going. You know, the, the last issue that they vote -- had the people vote on was to set up day care. Day care for, I don't know who, you know, but about 1,600 people will be getting the city help for day care. Well, you know, that's more enabling. See, that's continued labeling, and that's the kind of legislation -- the Road Home [Denver's 10-year plan to end homelessness] -- that's more, more enabling, and more pandering, and -- but anyway. What I'm going to do is, I'm going to call them on it when I get elected, because it is looking good. Since I've put my literature out, my loose paper, I've had calls from people saying, do you really believe this -- that the, that the Italians should have their holiday too? Yes, I do. They should have their holiday without any, any, any interference from anybody. Just like everybody else has. And, and, and -- I'm getting calls about that. And the Road Home and all the things I talk about in the newspaper that I'm passing out. But, what I'm going to do when I get in there, I'm going to call them on it. I'm going to say, is this a sanctuary city or not? If it's not, then I want an ordinance passed saying it isn't.

BOYLES: Sure.

BENAVIDEZ: Plain and simple.

BOYLES: Believe me, believe me, the last --

BENAVIDEZ: I'm going to catch heat for that, I know. I know.

BOYLES: No, no, no. I -- listen. If you're -- you're not making 'em mad, you're not doing your job.

BENAVIDEZ: Yeah. Well --

BOYLES: But, again, the other side of that is, I mean. I'd love to see you get the seat, more so just to ask those questions, because they -- they never get asked.