Thread: Opponents criticize proposal to detain illegals

http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/g ... 36,00.html

Opponents criticize proposal to detain illegals

By April M. Washington, Rocky Mountain News
November 11, 2005
Opponents of a proposal to detain illegal immigrants at sports arenas and other public areas called on Gov. Bill Owens on Thursday to denounce what they called a "mean- spirited and racist" movement.

At a news conference at the state Capitol, a coalition of religious leaders and human rights activists sharply criticized Owens for seeking a legal opinion regarding the proposal to detain illegal immigrants awaiting a hearing or deportation.

A petition signed by 1,288 Coloradans asks Owens to speak out against an idea that opponents likened to internment and concentration camps, and one they say specifically targets Mexican immigrants.

"It's not a question of what is legal," said James Johnson, a political activist. "It's a question of what is moral."

A group led by activist Terry Graham, of Boulder, submitted a petition to Owens last month asking him to declare a state of emergency regarding illegal immigration.

Graham's group also wants the governor to issue an executive order that would designate sports arenas, the old Lowry Air Force Base and other public facilities as overflow holding areas for illegal immigrants awaiting hearings and deportations.

Graham could not be reached for comment Thursday.

Dan Hopkins, the governor's spokesman, said that Owens simply sought a legal review of the petition because the Boulder group asked for a legal opinion.

The review found that issues related to illegal immigration are outside the governor's authority.

"It's not a power the governor has under state law, and it's not a power he is interested in pursing," Hopkins said.

"The issue of illegal immigration deserves a statewide and national debate. It's unfortunate that proposals such as the one asking for holding areas simply distract from the serious debate that should occur."

Immigration issues are expected to be heavily debated during the upcoming legislative session. Some Republican lawmakers are poised to propose measures to limit services to people who are in the country illegally.

State Rep. David Schultheis, R- Colorado Springs, issued a statement Thursday responding to the civil rights group's criticism of holding areas. He urged members to debate the issue of immigration without using inflammatory and divisive language.

"This group is trying to evoke images from our state's most shameful times, when the government imprisoned innocent citizens simply because of their heritage during a time of war," said Schultheis, who traveled to Arizona last month to join the Minutemen citizens group in patrolling a segment of the Mexican border.

"To detain illegal immigrants, who have committed a crime by breaking our immigration laws and living in our country illegally, is to enforce our laws and fulfill our duty to protect our citizens and legal residents."

Denver resident Marge Taniwaki, a survivor of World War II Japanese internment camps, said rounding up and detaining illegal immigrants is not a solution or acceptable.

She and other human rights activists argued that if such a measure goes unchallenged, the state is doomed to repeat the nation's "dark" sins of the past.

"Decades after the internment camps were closed, a commission was convened to study the camps," Taniwaki said.

"The conclusion was imprisonment occurred because of racism, wartime hysteria and the lack of political leadership and concern."

Many of the internment camps used by the U.S. government to intern the Japanese were already established to intern Indians. There is also a distinction the Japanese who were interned were either citizens or more often legal aliens. There were few of them who were not legal.