Denver has become one of the country’s flashpoints in the debate over illegal immigration. At last count, nearly 41,000 immigrants had arrived in the city in the last 16 months, and city officials said the response this year will cost $90 million.

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To help come up with the money, the city has cut services, including public safety, to pay for the care of those immigrants. 

Meanwhile, Aurora, Colorado Springs and other jurisdictions have adopted resolutions saying they cannot afford to spend money on this crisis.

Coloradans now say this is the most important issue in the state, according to a recent poll.

We hope to take a hard look at all sides of the immigration crisis roiling Denver and the country right now in a Denver Gazette/9News Colorado Conversation on Tuesday, May 7, 7 to 8 p.m. at the Stockyards Event Center, 5004 National Western Drive in Denver. Doors open at 5:30 p.m.

Please join us live at the events center and bring your questions, or watch the debate livestreamed on denvergazette.com, coloradopolitics.com and 9News.com. You can register at this link.

Panelists at the town hall will include key players and a range of different perspectives in this debate: Adam Paul, director of regional affairs for the mayor’s office; Mike Coffman, mayor of Aurora; Violeta Chapin, associate dean for community and culture and clinical professor of law at University of Colorado Law School; Abe Laydon, commissioner, Douglas County; and DJ Summers, director of policy and research, Common Sense Institute.

Moderator Luige Del Puerto, editor of The Denver Gazette and Colorado Politics and a first-generation immigrant himself, tells me panelists will be trying to answer the toughest of questions:

• Why are so many immigrants flooding into the country and specifically into Denver now?

• What needs to be done in Washington to stop the border crisis?

• Do immigrants steal jobs from American citizens, or do they do the jobs like cleaning toilets and picking fruit that Americans don’t want to do?

• Is the issue jobs or is it more about housing, when we already have an affordable housing crisis in Colorado?

• Has Denver helped to create the crisis it is in — by offering immigrants free shelter and transportation?

• Should Denver repeal its “sanctuary city” ordinances?

Mayor Mike Johnston recently gave a preview of the complexity of the conversation to come:

“There is a cycle that has been happening for hundreds of years in America,” Johnston said in a press conference. “People live in a home country that denies them fundamental rights and opportunities. And so, after struggle, or persecution, or violence, they turn their eyes to that beacon of freedom we call America.”

He added: “Each of these waves of immigration seem overwhelming at the time. But each became in our American story a vibrant thread that wove the fabric of America. … We built, with them, the greatest country in the world. That doesn’t mean it’s easy. And when migrants began to arrive in Denver by the busload we faced a crisis, the biggest in the country, one that threatened to overwhelm the city.”

Johnston’s statement begs one overarching question we hope the town hall can answer: In the long run, is Denver’s immigration problem solvable, and who are the ones to solve it?