Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman always has been the right guy in the right place at the right time. Some people call that luck. I call it being right.

The well-credentialed Republican is right on immigration, and both parties should be listening. Aurora presents the right situation to show us how it’s done.

Coffman — I call him Mike when I see him, so I’ll call him Mike here, too — has been one of the few Republicans to stand up to Donald Trump, and he paid the price for it. He was voted out of Congress two years ago, because of a divided GOP, quite frankly. When Democrat Jason Crow won, Trump, of course, mocked the loss. “Too bad, Mike,” the commander in chief tweeted.

History might or might not prove Mike right on that, as well. He’s sure not about to say he’s sorry.

Mike would never support Trump’s travel bans, and even called one an embarrassment to what America stands for. We can fight terrorism without surrendering our values, he held.

In 2014 he defied his party to vote against gutting the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which provides protection against deportation to 16,000 otherwise law-abiding Coloradans, many of whom know no other home but here. We can reform immigration without cruelty, Mike says.

In June the Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling against Trump’s attempt to rescind, and this month a federal judge ordered the administration to begin accepting applications again.

Score another one for Mike.

This month he rolled out Aurora’s 10-year immigrant and refugee integration plan that not only welcomes international newcomers but provides threads to sew them into the fabric of the city.

Aurora started its office of Internal and Immigrant Affairs in 2015, the only city in Colorado to make such a commitment and one of the few in the country. Consider: 1 in 5 Aurora residents was born outside the United States.

Need to learn English? Aurora will teach you. Open a small business? Aurora will show you how. Public office? Mike’s plan aims to teach newcomers how to turn their needs into politics and their politics into policy.

The city police department runs a Global Teen Police Academy to teach 15- to 18-year-olds to offer them a pathway to making their own communities safer.  

He knows it will take time, but Mike wants his police force to look like his community. Aurora police have a dim reputation in communities of color, especially since Elijah McClain’s death last year, the latest in a series of embarrassments and tragedies.

The city has a different plan for reforming the department, Mike said. 

I asked Mike if he worries about being labeled a sanctuary city. Denver gets that all the time, allegedly for not holding undocumented inmates behind bars indefinitely until the feds pick them up on immigration charges.

Aurora follows the letter of the law, Mike said, and the law says his police officers aren’t supposed to do the work of federal agents. He wants immigrants to help his police, not fear them.

Doing right could pay off in dollars, too.

In 2017 the city landed the El Salvadoran consulate in the old city hall building, and now it’s in the running to get the South Korean consulate, as well.

More international companies could follow, given Aurora’s nearby international airport and Colorado’s great quality of life.

Aurora has long been a city built on diversity, split across three counties, with an underpinning of inclusion.

Each August, Aurora is home to Colorado’s Taste of Ethiopia. One of my good friends, Nebiyu Asfaw — I call him Neb — runs the show, pretty much, and the ladies who cook the food collude annually to put meat on my skinny bones.

Mike is a fixture there, too.

One year when he was up for reelection to Congress, his opponent blew in to taste, made a short speech and blew out to the next engagement. Mike was there as long as I was, shaking hands, introducing prize winners on the main stage, posing for pictures with constituents. Organizers dressed him in a dashiki so colorful I thought he favored a peacock.

Immigrants notice such commitment, because they so rarely see it, Neb told me at the time.

Neb said Aurora is an exception in Colorado with its comprehensive bipartisan plan to lower the barriers for integration.

“Aurora’s investment has paid off big in accelerating the immigrant community’s contribution in transforming Aurora to a vibrant world-class city,” he said.

Neb and I agree that diversity makes us all better, wiser people. God put us on Earth to learn from one another. It’s a lot more than just good food, Neb told me.

“America is a nation of immigrants with a rare ability to take the best of many cultures from all corners of the world and almost magically integrate them to become uniquely American,” he said. “Through generations, we have arrived with different cultures, religions, attitudes and customs, yet we always come together as one nation. This is possible because America’s greatness and true genius lie in its diversity.”

Mike gets that, because it’s in his DNA.

His mother was an immigrant, born in Iraq and raised in China. Mike’s never forgotten where he came from and hopes future generations say the same about Aurora.