Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper announced his plan for comprehensive immigration reform recently. Unfortunately, his 4 point plan is 12 million points short of a solution for undocumented immigrants.
Hickenlooper’s plan caught the immigrant community by surprise. The newly elected Democratic governor relied on the immigrant community and their supporters to win election. However, when Hickenlooper revealed his plan on the Mike Rosen radio show, he did not mention a solution for the 12 million undocumented workers in the US.The Governor’s plan relies on four key points:
Secure the border; an ID system “that works”; Implement a guest worker system; place consequences for businesses that break the law by hiring undocumented workers.
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Second, Gutierrez proposed a guest worker program to provide for the labor needs of the aging baby boomers. It is expected the demands for everything from lawn care to health care will increase as boomers depend upon the next generation during their golden years. The guest worker program would allow people to walk across the border instead of risk their lives crossing the desert. It would also provide a means for them to return home, which most of them want to do.
Third, CIR provides for a solution for the 12 million undocumented immigrants in this country and their families. Considering each undocumented immigrant likely has an average of four documented and US citizen family members, the law would affect 40 million people directly. CIR integrates long term undocumented workers into society to discourage the underground economy and to benefit their citizen family members. The process would take years and add 3 billion to the treasury.
Despite Hickenlooper adding a fourth point, “identification that works”, his plan falls short of practical solutions. With 30,000 detention beds available nationally, and 12 million undocumented workers subject to being detained, it neither provides a way to remove the workers nor allows them to remain with their families in peace.
Fighting for the rights of those who suffer under injustice
Rather, the Hickenlooper plan is a continued demonstration of the ignorance of the fear and repression undocumented workers live under in the US. At any given moment, they are subject to being ripped from their jobs, businesses and families. Even a trip to church or the grocery store is a risk. There is a lack of understanding about the contributions undocumented workers make to the economy, a lesson many people in Arizona learned when 200,000 undocumented immigrants fled that state in fear of repressive anti-immigrant laws. The departure devastated the tax base and plunged the state into record multi-billion dollar deficits.
Hickenlooper is not the first Democratic Colorado governor to disappoint the immigrant community. His predecessor, Gov. Bill Ritter, signed the secure communities law into effect and selected Colorado’s largest counties including Denver to be the first to sign onto the law. Secure Communities marries Immigration and Customs Enforcement computer data bases with local law enforcement computer systems. The link turns every police officer into a potential immigration agent and makes communication between immigrants and police difficult. Hence reporting crimes like rape and sexual molestation is risky for immigrants.
Unless Hickenlooper changes his stance, Colorado will remain one of the least friendly places for undocumented workers to reside. The state’s reputation as anti-immigrant is a deterrent to legal immigrants including farm workers and to foreign investors who find the violation of human rights repugnant.
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