Denver-area officials and immigration experts blamed the federal government’s broken immigration system for the massive wave of undocumented migrants who have crossed the southern border and made Colorado their home but differed on ways to address it.

“I do think it was an important moment for those of us who do not live in border states to understand what border states like Florida and Texas are dealing with,” Violeta Chapin, a law professor at the University of Colorado, said during the Denver Gazette/9News town hall on Tuesday night. “It is very very challenging. … We have an extraordinary amount of unlawful migration to the United States because there are very few ways for people to come here lawfully. That’s why we still have 11 million undocumented people living here illegally for so long. There are few ways for people to normalize their status.”