http://cbs4denver.com/local/local_story_264180409.html

Sep 21, 2006 4:02 pm US/Mountain

Dragging Death Enters Immigration Policy Debate

Terry Jessup
Reporting

(CBS4) WASHINGTON The dragging death of a woman in Douglas County became part of the national debate on immigration reform.

Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colorado, cited the arrest of suspect Jose Luis Nava-Rubi as a reason to increase border security on the House floor Thursday.

Nava-Rubi is being held without bond on a first degree murder charge and an immigration hold because officials believe he is in the nation illegally.

Tancredo, in whose district the grisly murder occurred, is a strong proponent of much stricter laws for immigration.

In a House debate on a proposal to make it easier to detain and deport illegal immigrants, Tancredo said Rubi-Nava should've been out of the country in April after he was pulled over by Denver police.

"He was driving without a license, he was driving with a forged identifier," Tancredo said. "Something that was observable to the policeman. He was taken in and let go, no contact was made with ICE whatsoever.

Tancredo repeated his claim that Denver is a so-called "sanctuary city" for illegal immigrants.

"If the local police had been able to do their job expect for their sanctuary city provisions that stopped them, he would have been off the streets in April and not been able to commit this horrible crime," Tancredo said.

Denver's mayor John Hickenlooper refuted the Congressman's charges.

"Denver has been a sanctuary city, however many times he calls Denver a sanctuary city, it's not," Hickenlooper told CBS4.

The mayor said police are not told to go easy on illegal immigrants to help the economy.

"We do not arrest people because they don't have their driver's licenses and put them in jail and turn them over to ICE," Hickenlooper said. "We'd need a jail five times bigger than the one we're building now if we were going to consider that."

Hickenlooper did say if there was a mistake made in handling the stop involving Rubi-Nava in April, it had to do with the system.

"The bottom line is the way should work, that individual back in April should have been arrested and that magistrate should have referred him to ICE," Hickenlooper said.

Tancredo said he was particularly interested in the State and Local Enforcement Cooperate Act which deals with the identification and transfer of illegal immigrations who have been arrested.

Tancredo said if the laws worked correctly, horrible crimes like the dragging death wouldn't happen.

"We need to engage the local communities in this effort to help us and the federal government must take on a responsibility here to secure our borders," Tancredo said. "It is our true and one single responsibility."