Our state’s apologists for open borders sanctimoniously dubbed illegal immigrants “newcomers.” Because, y’know, accusing them of entering the country illegally is so judgmental. And not very welcoming.

The warm-and-fuzzy label also made it easier to lavish some $80 million in tax dollars on a deluge of illegal immigration, mostly from Venezuela, in Colorado’s largest city over the past couple of years. Denver Mayor Mike Johnston unflinchingly offered about 40,000 of the newcomers food, shelter and medical care on the taxpayers’ tab.

Of course, that’s in a state whose ruling legislative Democrats has passed one bill after another criminalizing cooperation between Colorado law enforcement agencies and federal immigration authorities — to make extra clear just how welcome the newcomers truly are. 

But don’t accuse Colorado’s elected leaders of turning our state into a sanctuary. They’ll flat out deny it. 

Gov. Jared Polis, who signed the legislature’s handiwork into law, won’t let “sanctuary” pass his lips. Neither will Denver’s Johnston, who coyly bobbed and weaved on the matter when he testified before Congress in Washington last March in defense of his city’s open-door policy. It’s a safe bet that was on the advice of his political consultants — er, legal team — who choreographed his congressional appearance at a cost of $2 million.

Imagine their surprise, then, at an alarming news report in The Gazette late last week. The headline pretty much said it all: “Colorado ‘un santuario’ for drug activity, DEA chief says.” 

Santuario is, of course, Spanish for sanctuary. And, as The Gazette reports, federal agents on the front lines of the battle against incoming, deadly drugs like fentanyl hear it a lot — in reference to our state — when they collar traffickers for the hemisphere’s major cartels.

“(Cartel members) said Colorado es un santuario … Colorado is a sanctuary,” said David Olesky, the special agent in charge at the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Rocky Mountain Field Division. 

“They know Denver es un santuario,” Olesky told The Gazette. “If they get arrested by the feds here, they know they will go (into custody). But if they get arrested by the state, their (illegal) immigration status means nothing.”

It’s not only the state’s embrace of illegal immigration but also its tolerance of illicit drugs and the legislature’s sweeping decriminalization of them in recent years. It’s a dangerous combination that acts as a draw for narco-traffickers.

While the cartels’ couriers may fear the feds, they know state and local law enforcement in Colorado are the ones with the cuffs on. A Mesa County sheriff’s deputy found that out the hard way last year when the Colorado Attorney General’s Office sued him for merely disclosing via an app used by federal and other law officers that he had carried out a traffic stop on someone who turned out to be in the country illegally. She later was apprehended by federal immigration officers.

“The state law says that they cannot collaborate on immigration,” Olesky said. “That case that happened in southwest Colorado has caused a chilling effect, where they are fearful they might get prosecuted, even if they have the best of intent.”

In other words, Colorado not only has become a sanctuary for illegal immigration in general — whether or not our state’s politicos will admit it — but it also has become a safe haven for international drug traffickers illegally entering the U.S.

It’s no wonder Olesky says Denver is “on the verge of breaking” drug activity records, while the rest of the country is headed in the other direction.

Imagine that: Serving as a doormat to the world also has made our beautiful state a DMZ in the war on deadly drugs. It’s as if the powers that be in our state had replaced the Colorado flag — with a white one.