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Illegal immigration foes start ballot effort
Proposal would limit government services

By Lynn Bartels, Rocky Mountain News
October 31, 2005

Critics of illegal immigration want Coloradans to vote next year on a constitutional amendment to block immigrants from receiving government services.

The proposal, which was filed last week at the state Capitol, is identical to one launched by U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo in 2004 that didn't make it onto the ballot.

The proposal would bar all services except emergency care and those mandated by the federal government, such as education for students in public schools. It would apply to all governmental entities: the state, counties, cities and other political subdivisions.

The ballot proposal was filed by Bill and Janice Herron, of Evergreen, who moved to Colorado from California in 1994.

Bill Herron, 72, a retired aerospace engineer, founded the Colorado Alliance for Immigration Reform. He worked with Tancredo, a Littleton Republican and critic of open borders, on the 2004 proposal.

Herron said he knows some people will call him racist.

"I don't worry about that," he said. "I know I'm not."

Anticipating the immigration issue would return next year, a coalition already has been formed to fight the proposed amendment, said political consultant Steve Welchert.

"We're all concerned about illegal immigration, but this is ax-handle public policy," he said.

"The alien we ought to be worrying about is not from Latin America but a bird bringing flu from Asia."

Welchert believes denying non- emergency care to illegal immigrants, including vaccinations, would lead to more expensive emergency room visits.

After Tancredo filed his proposal, opponents sought to keep it off the ballot but lost in the state Supreme Court in May 2004. By then, however, it was too late to gather enough signatures to get it on that year's ballot, Herron said.

"We're back," he said. "And because it's an identical proposal, there should be no problem with it getting on the ballot."

Not so fast, said attorney Mark Grueskin, who lost the legal battle to keep the measure off the ballot.

He said there are number of reasons a ballot proposal can be challenged, and some of those arguments were not raised during the 2004 hearing.

Herron was critical of what he called Grueskin's "legal tricks," and said he wonders which person or group paid for his services.

The question infuriated Grueskin.

"I did it for free because it was such a bad idea," he said.

Herron was pressed several times in an interview to list what services illegal immigrants are now receiving that they wouldn't get if the ballot measure passed.

"Anything that we do for them is a service," he said. "Anytime there is a tax-paid employee dealing with an illegal, they are basically providing them a service."

Herron said if the constitutional amendment passes, it would stop Democratic efforts to try to get in-state tuition for illegal immigrants.