Thread: Allard brings Senate committee hearing on immigration to Aur

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Posted on Wed, Aug. 30, 2006

Allard brings Senate committee hearing on immigration to Aurora

JUDITH KOHLER
Associated Press

AURORA, Colo. - A Senate committee hearing on immigration, headed by Colorado Republican Wayne Allard, triggered a debate even before it got started Wednesday when critics questioned the purpose and the list of invited witnesses.

Allard, a member of the Senate Budget Committee, said he wants Colorado to have a voice in the immigration debate and wants to pin down how legislation pending in Congress will affect state and local budgets and personnel.

Critics, including Sen. Ken Salazar, D-Colo., derided the hearing as nothing more than election-year politics because the Senate passed comprehensive immigration reform in May after months of debate and hearings.

"It is unfortunate that that willingness to enact reform is being held hostage in order to score political points for the November 2006 elections," Salazar said in a prepared statement.

Neither Allard nor Salazar is up for re-election this year.

Rep. Mark Udall, D-Colo., said the time for congressional field hearings was last year, before the House and Senate passed bills.

"At this last stage, field hearings look more like a cheap political stunt than an honest attempt at crafting legislation," Udall said.

"That's bunk," the normally soft-spoken Allard responded after the two-hour hearing at Aurora City Hall.

Outside the hearing, immigrant advocates carrying a banner saying "No human being is illegal" protested that they were not allowed to speak. About 10 to 15 anti-illegal immigration protesters carried signs saying "Born in America."

Gabriela Flora of the American Friends Service Committee called the hearing a political stunt.

"This is not a hearing that is looking for solutions," she said. "One of the ideas is to raise anti-immigrant fervor to get out the extremist voters."

Frosty Wooldridge, wearing a T-shirt saying "stop illegal immigration," yelled back that the invasion of foreign workers must be stopped.

The goal was to hear what impacts illegal immigration has on state and local governments, Allard said.

The hearing also focused on the Senate bill, which Allard and many conservative Republicans oppose.

Both the House and Senate bills propose increasing border security and building barriers along the U.S.-Mexico border. The Senate bill, though, includes a guest worker program that eventually could lead to U.S. citizenship for illegal immigrants while the House bill could make illegal immigrants subject to felony charges.

Election-year politics and differences among Republicans have aggravated the divisions between the two chambers.

Paul Cullinan of the Congressional Budget Office and Robert Rector of The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, said the Senate bill would cost taxpayers billions of dollars. Cullinan said the legislation would cost at least $49 billion over 10 years, compared with about $2 billion for the House measure.

The expenses would include public aid and student loans for immigrants, according to Cullinan and Rector. They both said the taxes immigrants would pay wouldn't offset costs because they are generally less educated and earn less than the rest of the workforce.

Gov. Bill Owens, Aurora Mayor Ed Tauer and law enforcement officials who testified said coming up with concrete costs of illegal immigration is difficult, but said it totals millions of dollars each year. Owens said educating students in the country illegally or whose parents are illegal immigrants costs the state more than $300 million a year, but federal law prevents school districts from asking whether students are citizens.

Federal law also prevents states from using tougher standards to determine whether proof of citizenship or visas are legitimate, Owens said. State departments have found several fake birth certificates and passports while checking identification for new state laws that prohibit most state services for illegal immigrants.

Carlos Espinosa, spokesman for Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., said the field hearings are valuable in helping Congress determine what will work and what won't in reforming immigration.

"They have swayed some decision-makers about what's a workable compromise," Espinosa.

Tancredo, an outspoken foe of illegal immigration, headed a House Resources Committee hearing on the issue Monday in Hamilton, Mont.

Some Colorado activists complained that they weren't allowed to speak at the hearing. Lisa Duran, executive director of the immigrant advocacy group Rights for All People, said she was told she could submit written comments.

"I believe that when you have a hearing such as this one and the only testimony is from people from a very particular set of perspectives, it's not productive to finding solutions, and we need solutions," Duran said. "We have a broken system and people are suffering because of it, and I don't think Sen. Allard cares."

Laura Condeluci, Allard's spokeswoman, said several people contacted the senator's office after the list of speakers was completed. She said the senator will take any written comments back to Washington.

"We have a broken system and people are suffering because of it, and I don't think Sen. Allard cares."

Our system isn't broken...it is NOT enforced!

If any changes are made fix the anchor baby problem and make it tougher. Americans will do these jobs and there is also machinery that will do jobs. We really don't need migrant workers. Americans and machinery can fill these jobs.