Thread: Activists urge governor to crack down on illegals

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/s ... 92,00.html

Activists urge governor to crack down on illegals
By John C. Ensslin, Rocky Mountain News
October 7, 2005

Activists delivered petitions to Gov. Bill Owens' office Thursday, demanding that he declare a state of emergency and use sports arenas and former military bases as overflow detention centers for illegal immigrants awaiting deportation.

The petitions also ask Owens to issue an executive order reversing any local sanctuary policies that favor illegal immigrants.

They also urged the governor to impose financial sanctions on any state employees who conduct official business in any language other than English.

Terry Graham, a Boulder County resident who drafted the petition, said several activists seeking a moratorium on immigration had been able to collect 160 signatures since Sept. 1.

"Many of us would have hoped that Governor Owens would have acted on this issue," she said. "He hasn't. He has been MIA (missing in action) on this issue."

A spokesman for Owens said the governor has not had time yet to review the petitions. Owens had several public appearances Thursday morning.

Spokesman Mark Salley said Owens has forwarded the documents to his legal counsel "to look at what he is being asked to do and to find out what authority he has to do the things he is being asked to do."

http://www.denverpost.com/search/ci_3093928

Activists demand Gov. Owens help stop illegal immigrants
By Jim Hughes
Denver Post Staff Writer

A group of immigration activists wants Gov. Bill Owens to declare a state of emergency and develop a plan that includes sending illegal immigrants to "overflow holding areas" such as Coors Field and the former Lowry Air Force Base to await deportation.

Saying that undocumented workers in Colorado are making every problem in the state worse, from traffic congestion and air pollution to crime and state budget shortfalls, the activists are calling on Owens to build on the example set by the governors of Arizona and New Mexico, who issued emergency declarations over immigration concerns in August.

"This is just the beginning of a citizens' grassroots effort to make the governor act on illegal immigration," said Terry Graham, a Boulder activist who ran the petition drive. She said she delivered the petition, signed by about 150 people, to Owens' office Thursday morning.

"They don't belong here," Graham said of the state's undocumented workers. "We can't continue to have them commit even more crimes. We are asking Gov. Owens to protect and serve his constituents, and that's Colorado citizens."

Owens "has seen the petition and he has forwarded it to his legal counsel asking for an opinion as to whether or not the governor has the ability to do the things they're asking for in the petition," said spokesman Mark Salley.

According to the petition, the activists want Owens to do away with local "sanctuary" policies for illegal immigrants across the state. They also want him to impose "financial and other personnel sanctions" against anyone conducting state business in languages other than English, according to the petition.
Lisa Duran, executive director of the membership-based immigrant advocacy group Rights For All People, called the petition "abhorrent and ridiculous."

She accused Graham of launching an attack on "hardworking mothers and fathers for putting food in their children's mouths."

Duran said she was disappointed by Owens' response.

"This is hate speech," she said. "We need the governor to speak out against this kind of extreme, fringe hate speech."

In New Mexico and Arizona, the emergency declarations opened up funding for law enforcement personnel and equipment in those border states. A group of three Republican state lawmakers spent this week touring the area, saying they will return to pursue immigration legislation at the Colorado state Capitol this winter.

Staff writer Jim Hughes can be reached at 303-820-1244 or jhughes@denverpost.com.

And a word from Jim Spencer of the open border crowd

Scene would have shocked border trio
By Jim Spencer
Denver Post Staff Columnist
DenverPost.com

CHI-VAS! A-ZUL!
CHI-VAS! A-ZUL!

As three wing nuts from the Colorado legislature suggested that the state spend tax dollars to pay civilian vigilantes patrolling the Mexican border and deny state-supported welfare and health care to illegal immigrants, I floated in a sea of local Mexican-Americans.

Nearly 29,000 Coloradans showed up at Invesco Field on Wednesday night for a soccer match between Chivas and Cruz Azul, two Mexican professional teams. All but a few thousand fans were Latino.

They paid for their tickets and bought overpriced concessions.
Thousands of children and parents wore Mexican team jerseys or draped themselves in the flags of their favorite team. They competed to cheer the loudest, waiting politely for their rivals to respond: CHI-VAS! A-ZUL!

I suspect the majority of those cheering pay state taxes. I wonder how many want those taxes funding a private, primarily white army that tracks down illegal brown immigrants. I wonder how many want to leave undocumented workers sick or homeless and hungry.

That's what Colorado Reps. David Schultheis, Bill Crane and Jim Welker talk about when they say state taxpayers should help fund the Minuteman Project and end benefits to illegal immigrants.
Nobody was thinking about that at the soccer match. Rather, they concentrated on the "wave" flowing through the stands.

Smiling, laughing fans of both teams stood together and flung their hands into the air. Behind me, a middle-aged Latino man hugged his grandchild inside his coat as the temperature dipped to near-freezing.

It was as fun-loving and family-oriented a crowd of Coloradans as you'd see at a professional sports event.
It was also an ironic antidote to the distrust and fear of Mexicans empowered by anti-illegal-immigrant types such as Schultheis, Crane, Welker and Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo.

The huge assembly of Mexican-Americans at Invesco took place hours before anti-illegal-immigrant forces - including the founder of Colorado's Minutemen - delivered to Gov. Bill Owens a letter calling for "An Emergency Executive Order designating sports arenas ... as 'overflow' holding areas for illegal aliens awaiting hearings and deportations (ending dangerous catch-and-release policies)."

The anti-illegal-immigrant forces say they oppose illegal entry to the U.S., not people of color. Yet they hover on the Mexican border. They worry almost full time about illegal Mexicans.
The happy gathering of brown people at Denver's largest sports arena likely would have raised their blood pressure.

The anti-illegal-immigrant troops find it unpatriotic for Americans to read or speak Spanish instead of English. Witness their recent charge that the Denver Public Library buys too many Spanish-language books. Witness Thursday's letter to the governor, demanding that he punish "State agencies and employees who conduct State business in languages other than Colorado's Constitutionally designated 'Official English."'
English was a distant second language at Invesco on Wednesday.
And, horror of horrors, in the first game of a double-header, the crowd cheered louder for the Chivas USA side in a Major League Soccer match than for the home team Colorado Rapids.

This must be the "balkanization" of America that the anti-illegal-immigrant crowd fears. Sure, most of these fans were back on the job Thursday, working stiffs paying taxes. Yeah, a recent study showed immigrants account for only 8 percent of government health spending.

But for gosh sake, these people stayed out until midnight, pulling for a team with a Mexican namesake against an American soccer club. Then, they cheered wildly in Spanish for a pair of Mexican teams.

I'm just glad Schultheis, Crane, Welker and Tancredo were not looking for illegal aliens at Invesco on Wednesday night when Chivas and Cruz Azul took the field. So many of their fellow Coloradans rose for the Mexican national anthem, they might have died of culture shock.

Jim Spencer's column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He can be reached at 303-820-1771 or jspencer@denverpost.com.