August 29, 2008

La Prensa San Diego Commentary:

The Other Denver: Hispanics Haunted by Specter of Deportation

By Carmen Alarcón
El Diario/La Prensa

DENVER, Colo. — While members of the Democratic Party are gathered in the Pepsi Center to support Senator Barack Obama as the party’s nominee in the presidential campaign, Mexicans working just seven miles away, on Federal Boulevard, are living a very different reality.

Luis Carlos Ruiz, owner of the auto shop Transmissions Ruiz, says that even though he is leaning toward Obama because of his position on immigration, Denver’s immigrant community has been greatly affected by local ordinances that attack the undocumented.

“Now, if you’re driving without a license, they’ll take your car and you have no way of getting it back without papers,â€