http://www.rockymountainnews.com

Border control bill may be revived
By Lynn Bartels, Rocky Mountain News
March 21, 2006

In one of the most unlikely duos ever seen at the Capitol, House Speaker Andrew Romanoff and Rep. Dave Schultheis are quietly working behind the scenes on a proposal to help the State Patrol deal with suspected illegal immigrants.

Their effort began about three weeks ago when Schultheis, a Colorado Springs Republican who has seen all three of his immigration bills die this session, contacted Romanoff, a Denver Democrat.

"I wanted to know if there was any way we could resurrect my bill regarding law enforcement," Schult-heis said.

Schultheis' measure, House Bill 1134, would have trained and authorized local and state law enforcement to identify, process and possibly detain suspected illegal immigrants encountered during patrols.

The bill died in committee.

"Romanoff said, 'That's worth talking about,' " Schultheis said. "Frankly, I was not surprised. I find Andrew to be very open."

The two lawmakers said they are looking at what Alabama and Florida have done on the issue. Some of their troopers got special training from the federal government to help detect illegal immigrants.

Romanoff and Schultheis, who rarely agree on legislation, are looking at what it would cost Colorado to cover its troopers' shifts while they attend federal training.

Romanoff stressed Colorado's troopers are not going to "conduct raids, because that's the feds' job."

The troopers' roles will be assessing people investigated on suspicion of drug trafficking and other crimes or infractions to determine if they have the proper documentation to be in the United States. "The questions are what is the best use of this training, how many troopers would you want to train and how are you going to pay for the troopers' lost time," Romanoff said.