Thread: Immigration laws stymied

Immigration laws stymied
A year after state leaders passed hard-line legislation, agencies haven't followed up because of strained resources.

Bureaucratic bungling, legislative inaction and a lack of funding have hampered Colorado's efforts to enforce the state's immigration laws.

In July 2006, Republican Gov. Bill Owens hauled the legislature into a special session to seek ways to prevent state tax dollars from aiding illegal immigrants.

After passing a dozen laws, Owens and Democratic legislative leaders declared victory. They said they passed the toughest package of laws in the nation. Owens said as many as 50,000 illegal immigrants would be purged from state welfare rolls.

But a year later, most state agencies have not aggressively enforced those laws, and there's scant evidence that the laws have done anything to deter spending taxpayer money on benefits to illegal immigrants.

"They only scratched the surface," said Sen. David Schultheis, R-Colorado Springs. "We had a reluctant legislative majority trying to put something in place that looked like it was going to be extremely effective but which only had minimum effectiveness."

House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, D-Denver, countered that the federal government hampers state efforts to deal with illegal immigration.

"I said all along the test of our success is not how many laws we pass or how many press conferences we hold or how much noise we make, but how many problems we solve," he said.

Many considered the session an exercise in high-stakes political theater during an election year. A year later, the drama does not have a happy ending. Rather, it just fades out.

The landmark bill of the session - House Bill 1023 - imposed tougher ID requirements to get state aid. Instead, state departments have reported spending $2 million to comply with the law, without showing a reduction in the demand for services.

A survey of state agencies has found that most of the other new laws have not been rigorously enforced:

The Colorado Department of Labor and Employment has not audited any of the state's 153,000 employers to make sure they are keeping copies of proper documents from new workers.

The Office of Information Technology submitted its required report last fall on providing a database for employers to check a prospective worker's residency status - but lawmakers failed to act on it.

The Colorado Department of Regulatory Agencies has not revoked a professional license because of legal residency issues. The department has just four investigations pending. DORA's Division of Registrations oversees about 290,000 licensees.

The Office of Economic Development and International Trade has required only four companies receiving tax incentives to certify that none of their workers are illegal immigrants.

The Colorado Department of Corrections does not have a single offender behind bars for the newly created or tougher felonies of immigration extortion, involuntary servitude and voting by persons not entitled to vote.

One of the centerpiece laws of the special session was an effort aimed at employers of illegal immigrants. House Bill 1017 requires employers to keep copies of documents provided by new workers to prove their legal residence in the U.S.

That law also gives the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment the power to conduct random audits of employers. More than a year later, not a single employer has been audited.

The problem: Instead of assigning the duty of conducting audits to the department's Division of Labor as called for in the bill, the Owens administration gave the job to the department's investigations and enforcement unit.

"My investigative unit was well- schooled and already teed up and ready to go," said Rick Grice, executive director of the department under Owens.

Grice said that choice was a sign of how important the matter was to the Owens administration. Still, the unit never audited an employer to verify compliance with the new law.

The department's new director, Don Mares, re-assigned the duties to the Division of Labor this year. The division has sent notices to employers and posted an explanation of the law on its website. It has not conducted an audit.

The lack of enforcement of the special session's new laws is part of a pattern.

In November, lawmakers chided Republican Attorney General John Suthers for failing to enforce an anti-forgery law aimed at illegal immigrants. Suthers blamed a lack of funding.

Suthers tried to get extra money this year to enforce the law, but lawmakers failed to provide the money.

Without funding, the attorney general is relying on referrals from district attorneys, but so far none have been made, said Nate Strauch, spokesman for Suthers.

"We can pass laws, but it takes resources and effective enforcement to make them work," Romanoff said. "If departments are struggling to understand the laws or to enforce them, then we should help them."

http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_6552322

I don't understand this "lack of funding" excuse.

If the law changes, the head of each respective state dept. should see that it's followed. If individuals need a social security number for benefits, make that part of your written procedure. If your employees don't ask people for their SSN, take disiplinary action against them.

The Governor should be leaning on dept. heads to make enforcement part of their management process !

I suspect many of the state's caseworkers, disagree with the new laws.

The gov. is failing at enforcement and the legislature is dragging its feet. There will be changes in 2008 if these programs dont get funded and excuted.

CAIR needs to coordinate some things here in Colorado. We dont need FAIR info regergetated in emails.

I don't really understand the 'lack of funding' either.

It looks to me like the only thing that would be needed for a lot of the agencies would be a letter stating the new rules. Will it take more workers to put less people on the rolls?