Small Business Administration’s regional headquarters will move out of Denver, 5 other “sanctuary cities”

The U.S. Small Business Administration confirmed Thursday that it would pull regional offices from Denver and five other large “sanctuary cities” over their unwillingness to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

“Over the coming months, the Atlanta, Boston, Chicago, Denver, New York City, and Seattle regional offices will be moved to less costly, more accessible locations that better serve the small business community and comply with federal immigration law,” the SBA said in a release.

The announcement comes a day after Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, along with Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, and New York City Mayor Eric Adams testified for six hours before Congress about their respective stances on cooperating with federal deportation efforts.

“If we want to tell the story of what impact immigrants have in America, we must tell the full story,” Johnston told the committee in an opening statement. “The truth is that people who are new to this country do good and bad, just like all of us.”

Denver is home to the SBA’s Region VIII, which covers Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Utah, North Dakota and South Dakota. The Colorado District Office, established in 1953, is in the federally-owned U.S. Customs House at 721 19th St.

No announcement has been made as to where the region’s new office will be, but Rep. Jeff Crank, a Republican representing southern Colorado in Congress, wrote SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler on Feb. 25 asking that the SBA regional headquarters be moved to Colorado Springs.

“It is important that SBA offices are located not in major cities — dominated by large corporations and run-away governments — but in locations where safety is prioritized and innovation propels the local economy,” Crank wrote Loeffler.

Additionally, the SBA said Thursday it would implement a citizenship verification provision to tighten down on who can access the SBA’s programs. The prior requirement was that a business must be at least 51% owned by a U.S. citizen or lawful permanent resident to qualify for an SBA loan.

“We will return our focus to empowering legal, eligible business owners across the United States – in partnership with the municipalities who share this administration’s commitment to secure borders and safe communities,” Loeffler said in the release.

Lenders must now confirm that businesses in whole or in part are not owned by anyone who is an “illegal alien,” which is defined in U.S. statute as any individual “who enters or attempts to enter the United States at a time or place other than as designated by immigration officers, eludes examination or inspection by immigration officers, or attempts to enter or obtains entry to the United States by willfully false or misleading representation or the willful concealment of a material fact.”

The SBA noted that after an audit, it reversed a $783,000 loan approved last summer for a business that was 49% owned by someone in the country illegally. It did not provide statistics on what share of prior SBA loans were made to businesses that would no longer be eligible under the new rules.

Previous SBA administrator Isabel Casillas Guzman said in January in her End of Term report that the SBA had delivered $1.2 trillion in loans and grants to more than 13 million recipients during the pandemic and recovery. About $450 billion of that had come during the Biden administration.

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