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By MICHAEL BECKEL   
Wednesday, 28 March 2007

Coloradans lobby while Congress considers latest immigration reform bill

 

Immigrants are vital to small-business owner Mike Miller’s livelihood. They comprise the majority of the workforce in his five Basil Doc’s Pizza locations in Denver, and to the best of his knowledge, they’re all documented.

“I’m all about documentation and doing things the right way,” he says. “But the current immigration system we have is broken.”

Immigrants face numerous hurdles as they strive to become citizens, Miller adds, and the importability of work visas can keep immigrants “indentured” to one employer. He elaborated on these concerns while in the offices of Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo, Democratic Reps. Ed Perlmutter, Diana DeGette and John Salazar, and Democratic Sen. Ken Salazar during a brief lobbying stint that attracted hundreds of immigrants and their supporters from across the nation.
 

“We wanted to make an impact. We weren’t there for a sight-seeing tour,” says Miller, one of eleven Coloradans to participate in the four-day Congressional outreach during the second week of March.

Hailing from Alamosa, Colorado Springs, Denver, Grand Junction and Montrose, the Centennial State’s contingent was organized by the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition (CIRC) and was successful in meeting with seven of the state’s nine Congressional delegates. Only Republican Reps. Marilyn Musgrave and Doug Lamborn rebuffed the group’s requests for meetings.

“That was our appropriations week, so we declined the meeting,” says Christopher Harvin, Lamborn’s communications director. “All of our legislative assistants were busy trying to get funding back in the district. We just couldn’t meet with them at that time.”

Musgrave’s office failed to return calls for comment.

Congressional offices offer mixed reactions on the influence of such visits.

“To lobby us on anything like that is probably not very effective,” says Tancredo spokesperson Carlos Espinosa, whose boss is weighing a presidential run as a staunch opponent of illegal immigration.

“They want to give rights and livable wages and all these great things to illegals that are here right now,” Espinosa says. “The problem is that once you give them those rights, you force those employees to go to more illegal workers who don’t have those rights.”

Leslie Oliver, the communications and policy director for Rep. Perlmutter, offers a different perspective.

“Any time constituents or interested parties come in to speak with him, that’s important to him, because they have incredible stories to tell,” she says. “Those meetings are definitely something that the congressman will consider and take into account as he’s thinking about [immigration reform].”

Following weeks of intensified calls for fair and humane reform, such as the advocacy days attended by the CIRC delegation, Democratic Rep. Luis Gutierrez of Illinois and Republican Rep. Jeff Flake of Arizona introduced the new Congress’s first pass at comprehensive immigration reform on March 22.

Six additional Republicans have signed onto the bill, HR 1645, as have 22 additional Democrats, including the Third District’s John Salazar.

The measure would allow children brought into the country illegally to obtain educational and financial benefits, would create a new guest-worker program, and would provide a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, though immigrants seeking citizenship would be forced to leave the United States and re-enter legally. The resolution also calls for an increase in law enforcement personnel and security technology, such as unmanned aerial vehicles and sensors, along the border and would establish at least 20 additional detention facilities.

Immigrant-advocacy groups call the new legislation an encouraging step but note that it is far from perfect.

“The bill does contain some of our key principles that we were advocating for,” says Julien Ross of CIRC, who praises the path to citizenship and worker protections but criticizes forcing immigrants to leave the country and reenter, as well as the increased militarization of the border.

“We are currently analyzing the bill in greater detail,” he continues. “We hope to achieve the very best bill possible that contains as many of our principles as possible.”

 
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