Owens to give testimony at immigration hearing
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Owens to give testimony at immigration hearing
U.S. Senate panel gathering input on proposed reforms
Print By M.E. Sprengelmeyer, Rocky Mountain News
August 23, 2006
WASHINGTON - Gov. Bill Owens will headline the list of scheduled witnesses for a U.S. Senate field hearing on immigration reform next week in Aurora, Sen. Wayne Allard's office announced Tuesday.
The Senate Budget Committee is meeting Aug. 30 at the Aurora Municipal Center to talk about the effects of current and proposed immigration policies on state, federal and local government finances.
The committee will hear from two panels of witnesses. Owens is expected to testify in the opening round, along with Paul Cullinan of the Congressional Budget Office and Robert Rector, senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation think tank.
The second panel includes Aurora Mayor Ed Tauer; El Paso County sheriff's Cmdr. Paula Presley; Mesa County Chief Deputy District Attorney Dan Rubenstein; Tony Gagliardi, Colorado state director of the National Federation of Independent Business; and Helen Krieble, president of the Vernon K. Krieble Foundation.
Krieble, a Colorado horse park owner, is the leading backer of an alternative reform package being billed as a way to break the gridlock between competing versions of immigration reform legislation in Congress.
Owens spokesman Dan Hopkins said the governor is likely to talk about the costs to the state of illegal immigration, including the hundreds of millions of dollars for public education.
"Obviously, the state is required to provide that service under federal law, but the impacts are enormous," Hopkins said. "That's one of the areas that should be discussed."
For now, the Senate and House of Representatives are far apart on immigration reform.
Late last year, the House passed legislation that would expand a fence along the U.S.-Mexico border, make unlawful presence in the United States a felony, and crack down on those who hire illegal immigrants.
The Senate passed a version that includes enforcement provisions but also a guest-worker plan backed by President Bush and measures that would allow millions of people now in the country illegally to get on an eventual path to citizenship.
With no compromise in sight, congressional Republicans have scheduled a series of hearings around the country during the August recess.
Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Denver, has questioned the motivations for the hearings.
"This immigration hearing and others like it are stunts," Salazar spokesman Cody Wertz said Tuesday. "I don't know what they serve to accomplish.
"The Senate has passed comprehensive immigration reform. House leadership has refused to come to the table. All this said, Washington is where comprehensive immigration reform needs to be completed, and Washington hasn't done its job."
Allard chief of staff Sean Conway fired back on Tuesday, saying the hearing, which will be chaired by the senator, was particularly timely because a new report by the Congressional Budget Office found that the estimated cost of the Senate-passed legislation would be $126 billion over the next 10 years.
"The CBO is a nonpartisan entity and they're coming out and they're warning that the legislation the Senate passed is going to cost $126 billion." Conway said.
"So this hearing is becoming even more important in a sense this is focusing on the fiscal side of the issue," he added.
