Thread: CO:Hickenlooper out of line on illegal immigration, foes say

Hickenlooper out of line on illegal immigration, foes say

By Christopher N. Osher
The Denver Post
Posted: 09/10/2010 01:00:00 AM MDT
Updated: 09/10/2010 05:55:57 AM MDT


Two candidates trying to thwart Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper's gubernatorial bid say he is so soft on illegal immigration that he is unfit for office.

Both Tom Tancredo, running a third-party bid to become governor, and GOP candidate Dan Maes have argued that Denver is a "sanctuary city," offering safe harbor to illegal immigrants.

Hickenlooper rebuts the allegations. He points out that Denver referred more than 7,000 arrested individuals to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for further investigation from May 2006 through 2009.

The city did not track such statistics before 2006, the year the state began requiring such data.

"I don't care how many times people say it's a 'sanctuary city'; it doesn't
make it true," Hickenlooper said in a debate last week, adding that the city complies "with every state and federal law that's relevant to this issue."

City rules put in place before Hickenlooper was first elected in 2003 limit police from proactively investigating illegal immigration.

"The responsibility for enforcement of immigration laws rests with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement," the policy states. "Denver police officers shall not initiate police actions with the primary objective of discovering the immigration status of a person.

"Generally, officers will not detain, arrest or take enforcement action against a person solely because he/she is suspected of being an undocumented immigrant."

When an undocumented individual is arrested for other charges, police also will charge them with "refer to immigration" and jail officials will alert federal immigration authorities, according to the policy.

In addition, jail officials alert ICE when arrestees report themselves as foreign born.

Assistant City Attorney David Broadwell said Denver's policy is not "out of step" with the rest of the state.

"The allegation that a sanctuary exists implies that there is a line or demarcation, that you would be treated differently in Denver," Broadwell said. "I don't believe there is any empirical evidence to support that."

Similar stances in state

Surveys of other Colorado communities show that other police agencies take similar stances and usually contact federal immigration authorities only in serious cases such as felony investigations and traffic accidents involving vans carrying several suspected illegal immigrants.

Elsewhere in the country, a broad range of policy stances exists among municipalities.

Some, such as San Francisco, forbid city money from being used in immigration efforts, and intense debates continue there over whether authorities should report to immigration officials juveniles accused of committing felonies.

Others areas, such as Irving, Texas, have started actively investigating the citizenship status of all inmates, according to published accounts. And about 80 local law enforcement agencies in the nation are participating in a program that allows officers to initiate deportation proceedings, something Denver has not done.

Polls show the issue is important to Coloradans. In a recent Denver Post/9News poll, 61 percent of those surveyed said the state should pass a law similar to one Arizona recently passed.

The Arizona law requires police who have already made "lawful contact" with someone to question that person if the police believe he or she is in the United States illegally. Colorado is home to 240,000 illegal immigrants, according to a survey the Pew Hispanic Center conducted in 2009.

When Maes entered the race more than a year ago, he supported citizenship for illegal immigrants, but he has since changed his stance.

Maes now says the U.S. needs to enforce the laws on the books, and people here illegally should not be granted citizenship.

On a policy page on his campaign's website, Maes said that he at first did not view immigration as a top issue but has since learned many in the state find it very important.

That led him "to consult many in the immigration area to develop a policy more in line with the current wishes of Colorado voters," he said.

Maes would require all of the state's private employers to use a federal database program to verify the validity of Social Security numbers reported by current and potential workers.

He also would hire more state patrol officers to handle illegal immigration issues.

Campaign centerpiece

Tancredo has made the issue the centerpiece of his campaign.

"The mayor and I have argued this I don't know how many times," Tancredo said during last week's KCNC-Channel 4/KBDI-Channel 12 debate with Hickenlooper and Maes. "But it is a sanctuary city. And when you have sanctuary cities, you create problems. It's a magnet for people who come here illegally.

"Secondly, it sets up a situation where people who are here illegally can come into contact with law enforcement but never be turned over to ICE."

In fundraising e-mails, Tancredo has accused Hickenlooper, when he was a restaurant owner, of employing a dishwasher with a fake Social Security card who shot and killed a Denver police detective in 2005.

"I know that the mayor wasn't at the restaurant hiring people," Tancredo said. "But . . . (he) certainly had the responsibility to say, 'Here is what we do in terms of hiring people.' "

At the time Raul Gomez-Garcia, who later killed police officer Donnie Young, was hired, Hickenlooper's restaurant interests were held in trust, and the mayor was not involved in the day-to-day management. The trust has since sold the mayor's stake in the restaurants.

The mayor added that in 2005, it was much harder for employers to verify the legal status of potential workers.

Hickenlooper also said his restaurants were among the first to start using a federal online database that allows employers to make sure Social Security information is valid before hiring.

Gomez-Garcia was convicted of the killing and sentenced to 80 years in prison.

Tancredo also has come under fire in the past for his hiring practices.

Illegal immigrants in 2002 said they helped remodel Tancredo's Littleton basement. Tancredo said back then that he didn't know the company he hired for the job had illegal immigrants.

Tancredo also has pointed out that an illegal immigrant who escaped deportation despite numerous arrests in Denver later crashed his vehicle into an Aurora ice cream parlor in 2008, killing two adults and a 3-year-old.

Tancredo said such tragedies show Denver needs to start requiring police to check into the immigration status in instances where people are charged but not jailed.

"If you can't speak English, and you have no other form of identification, that should conclude in an arrest, and referral to ICE," Tancredo said, stressing that most of those who come into contact with police are never booked into jail, and they are the ones who end up escaping potential deportation under city policies.

Hickenlooper countered that if Tancredo had his way, taxes would skyrocket to create detention space. In a later interview, Hickenlooper said that would also make it harder for police to ensure that witnesses in ethnic communities continue to feel free to come forward when violent crime occurs.

Tancredo also faults Hickenlooper for not requiring all private employers in the city to use E-Verify.

The program is an online database that checks information on an employee's I-9 form — such as Social Security documentation — against data from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration.

All private employers

The city requires city contractors to use E-Verify, but Tancredo believes the program should be spread to all private employers, too.

"That would reduce the number of people in the city illegally pretty dramatically," he said.

Hickenlooper also has said he supports Secure Communities, a federal program that matches fingerprints of people booked into jail against a database of prints maintained by ICE. The program is still under review by Gov. Bill Ritter, and Denver can't join unless the state signs off.

"How it is implemented is relevant," said Hickenlooper, stressing that he doesn't want the program to be used to detain people just because of the way they look. "But that is the type of thing that keeps our streets safer."

Another issue repeatedly cited in an attempt to show Hickenlooper is weak on illegal immigration is a long-standing municipal executive order.

Executive Order 116, issued in 1998 during Mayor Wellington Webb's administration, announced opposition to a 1996 federal policy denying public benefits to some legal immigrants. The dispute had nothing to do with illegal immigrants, however.

"It's another example of a misstatement that is clearly false," Hickenlooper said. "And yet they talk about it on talk radio pretty much every week."

Christopher N. Osher: 303-954-1747 or cosher@denverpost.com


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Denver had better hurry and get Tom Tancredo in office before they are overrun by Illegal Aliens fleeing Arizona because they are coming, in droves...
Denver is about to be invaded because of its sanctuary policies.

Originally Posted by PaulRevere9

Denver had better hurry and get Tom Tancredo in office before they are overrun by Illegal Aliens fleeing Arizona because they are coming, in droves...
Denver is about to be invaded because of its sanctuary policies.

Too late. Because of Higgenlooper, the whole area, especially Aurora have already been invaded