http://www.telluridewatch.com/091206/immigration.htm

Published: 9/12/06


Telluride Council Voices Worry About New Immigration Laws
‘Nobody Is Illegal in the Eyes of God’
By Thomas Wirth

The Town of Telluride’s Thursday evening meeting to discuss Colorado General Assembly House Bill 1023, dealing with undocumented immigrant workers, is likely to be only the first of many.

“The 2006 Colorado State Legislature has recently enacted over ten new laws focused and directed at addressing what the state perceives as a problem with undocumented workers,” Town Attorney Kevin Geiger told those who attended the special meeting of the Telluride Town Council. A number of the bills deal with the private relationship between employers and undocumented workers, he added. The focus of the meeting was on one new law in particular, HB 1023, which became effective on Aug. 1 and deals directly with the relationship between local government, state government and undocumented workers.

“HB 1023 mandates that all governmental entities, including home rule municipalities such as the Town of Telluride, shall verify the lawful presence in the United States of each natural person eighteen years of age or older who applies for federal, state or local public benefits,” Geiger read from a prepared hand out available in both English and Spanish.

“A ‘public benefit’, which is the trigger for HB 1023 compliance,” he continued, “is specifically defined under both HB 1023 and the incorporating federal legislation. Generally speaking for town purposes, a public benefit is ‘a grant, contract, loan, professional license, commercial license ... any retirement, welfare, health, disability, public or assisted housing, postsecondary education, food assistance, unemployment benefit, or any other similar benefit for which payments or assistance are provided to an individual ... by an agency of a state or local government.’”

Examples of local public benefits listed by Geiger were business licenses, liquor licenses, vending permits, town employment of any kind, publicly assisted housing, affordable housing programs, town contracts, licenses or other legal agreements, and town grants or financial assistance of any kind.

Town Manager Frank Bell stressed that since the Colorado General Assembly had enacted HB 1023 in a special session it showed how serious the state considers the issue of undocumented workers. “The council and I have spent a lot of time talking about this problem over the last few weeks,” he said, “and I, in turn, have spent a lot of time talking with other communities trying to find out what each of us is doing to respond so that the impacts of this are not so devastating.

“While today we don’t have any good answers as to what to do next, we are developing some strategies for the future. One of those strategies is to work with other communities who face the same problem to work on getting some of these new regulations changed.

“Obviously, that will take time and a concerted effort from people around the state. In the meantime we are working on ways within the local community to help people understand truth from rumor and what their options are and to try to reduce worry.”

Ricardo Perez, a member of the committee for justice for immigrants on the Western Slope of Colorado, out of Grand Junction was not optimistic about overturning the new laws. He had recently met with agriculture companies around Grand Junction, he said, who felt that the only way the new law would change was with economic collapse. He was in attendance, he said, to ask that the wealthy and influential people of the Telluride region address their common concerns to those with economic power.

The meeting, while hoping to generate ideas to help solve problems created by the new bill – namely the loss of a large portion of the local workforce – largely served as a forum to disseminate information from a number of local public services. It was stated, and restated, that the meeting was just the opening salvo in what is bound to be a much larger and longer community effort.

“Our promise, if we could make one this evening,” said Bell, “is that we will continue to talk and continue to work to make this work for everybody.”

All who spoke at the meeting, in English and Spanish, were respectful of the difficult position into which the town has been placed. There was no discussion of defying the law, as all appeared to understand that non-compliance, beyond being illegal, could cost the town millions of dollars in state funding. Town Attorney Geiger also explained that should the town not comply, it could open itself up to lawsuits that could be brought against it by any of its residents.

Representatives of both the Telluride R-1 School District and the Telluride Hospital District also spoke to reassure locals of continued service. HB 1023 exempts those under 18 years of age, so services for children can continue uninterrupted, they reported.

Sharon Grundy, M.D., said that the Telluride Medical Center is working on ways to continue subsidized medical services for those who need it. Under the new law, immunizations, emergency room services, possible communicable diseases and alcohol and drug problems are all eligible for the Medical Centers financial sliding scale without showing proof of income or citizenship, she said. Persons who have already qualified for their financial sliding scale don’t need to reapply, she added.

“To me, a cold is a communicable disease,” said Grundy, “therefore that’s how I am interpreting [the new law].” The Medical Center is also working on ways to help those who need preventative care (high blood pressure, diabetes, etc.) to receive assistance, for example through the Telluride Foundation, she said. Grundy stressed that the medical community’s code of ethics does not require them to report patients to immigration services.

The majority of the meeting focused on the area of most concern to those in attendance – housing.

“I think the problem is very obvious that a lot of our friends, neighbors and undocumented workers are going to have,” said Juan Acevedo Lucia, Vice President of the San Miguel Resource Center, “Where are they going to live? It appears that the town is going to follow this law, as it has to. Obviously, people aren’t going to be able to stay in Telluride.”

The San Miguel Resource Center has long been a strong link to the immigrant community in San Miguel County, and Lucia pledged to continue to help wherever the center can. “We are going to need the help of all of the community to get through this,” he said.

Councilmember Mark Buchsieb suggested that now was the time to begin an effort to secure temporary private housing, which is unaffected by the state law, to house disenfranchised renters. Others brought up the possibility of placing public housing in private control or allowing units to be rented to entities versus individuals to avoid the new requirements, or to look into whether “wriggle room” was possible under the law since there was no state funding to enforce the new requirements.

Not all at the meeting were focused solely on migrant workers concerns. Thomas “Mas” Best asked that all people “play on a level playing field” when seeking affordable housing. While his taxes as a citizen go to pay for affordable housing, he said, those who don’t pay taxes receive the housing that he is unable to get.

Longtime local Luigi Chiarani spoke of the changing character of his west-end neighborhood of 17 years. “Being an immigrant myself with my family many years ago, I completely understand the need and desire to improve your lives as my father did and wanted for his children,” he said.

“I’m not going to discuss the issue of the state law. I want to talk about the housing conditions we have in this town and also what feeds the need for well-paid legal or illegal workers in this community. We have explosive growth that is unsustainable for the work force we have.”

The interim director of the Regional Housing Authority, Monica Carey, who administers the Shandoka Housing projects, suggested that the next step the region should take would be to set up an agency to deal specifically with the problems arising from HB 1023. The agency’s mission, she said, would be threefold: to assist employers with documenting workers, to assist workers in the documentation process (and coordinat efforts with the Department of Motor Vehicles in Montrose), and to address the issue of Shandoka’s compliance with the law.

To dispel recent rumors, Telluride Chief Marshal Jim Kolar stated that rumors of local law enforcement working with immigration authorities on raids or inspections for undocumented workers are unfounded. Kolar explained that local law enforcement agencies usually only participate in such actions if they are pursuing a particular criminal suspect who is likely to be apprehended in such an action.

Kolar stressed that the Marshals Department is available to all members of the community who are the victims of crimes, and that anyone should feel comfortable seeking their aid, and added that the department does have a few Spanish-speaking officers to help when necessary. Only in the case of an arrest is the Marshals Department required to inform the Immigration and Naturalization Service of compliance, he said.

Baked In Telluride owner Jerry Greene voiced his disdain at being “blindsided” by the General Assembly. “I’m concerned about human rights and civil rights,” he said. “I want our community to be a welcoming, loving and caring community that understands and cares about the values that this country stands for – the nature of this country’s Constitution and Bill of Rights.”

Greene suggested that as a real solution to this problem some support and focus should be given by the local governments and citizenry to federal legislation currently proposed in the United States House of Representatives and Senate.

Councilperson Andrea Benda scolded local employers (Greene was the only business owner or manager to speak at the meeting) for not attending the meeting. “I wish we were on the radio,” she said, “so I could yell at you.” It is important, she wished them to know, that employers “get assertive to help workers become documented.”

Benda added that as a local historian she thought people should know that one hundred years ago Telluride was being built by people of twenty-five different nations. “That is what makes us strong,” she said. “Without that diversity we are not a community.”

Mountain Village Town Councilman Jonathan Greenspan was in attendance to assure people of the Mountain Village’s dedication to participate in whatever process might arise. The Mountain Village Town Council is slated to have a preliminary discussion of the matter at their Tuesday meeting, but Greenspan suggested that it was likely that there would have to be a multi-governmental meeting to address the issue in the near future.

Local immigration lawyer Suzanne Ross announced that the representatives from Mexican Consulate from Denver would be at the Delta Vocational and Technical Center on Saturday, Sept. 23, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. to provide services to Mexican citizens in response to the new law.

Deacon Mike Doehrman of the Telluride Catholic Church perhaps summed up the feeling of the majority of the crowd saying, “Nobody is illegal in the eyes of god.”