Immigration reform faces new president
By Brandi Grissom
Special to The Denver Post
Article Last Updated: 08/25/2008 11:10:58 PM MDT
"It's up to us, working with our new president to put some sense into the whole framework of the law so it works for America," Lofgren said.

The speakers said immigration law must be reformed before the border with Mexico can be secured.

The enforcement-only strategy of the current administration is not working, they said.

The administration's plan of self-deportation, making life so miserable for immigrants that they leave of their own accord, is a non-violent form of ethnic cleansing, said Frank Sharry, executive director of America's Voice, a group that promotes immigration reform.

"What's happening is a moral outrage, and it's a policy debacle," Sharry said.

He said the conservative right wing's vilification of immigrants would alienate enough Latino and immigrant voters to give Democrats the political support they need to pass comprehensive reform.

"This is about whether we as Americans are going to include people or exclude people," Sharry said.

Marco Lopez Jr., incoming director of the Arizona Department of Commerce, said his state has partnered with Mexico to target criminals who are crossing the border and human traffickers.

But the former mayor of Nogales, Ariz., on the Mexican border, said the traffic from south of the border won't stop and the drug and human trade would continue until Congress changes the way immigration works in America.

"By doing nothing it is indeed silent amnesty," Lopez said. "People will continue to come because we need them to come."





http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_10302880