Colorado Illegal Immigration Bill Details Revealed
 

Colorado Illegal Immigration Bill Details Revealed
Republican Lawmakers Discuss Suggestions For Illegal Immigration Legislation At Capitol
DENVER -- Colorado may be the next state to get national attention because of illegal immigration. A group of Republican lawmakers met Monday to discuss what issues should be included in a series of immigration bills to be introduced in January.
The Republican Study Committee of Colorado is a voluntary group of elected leaders that deals with long-range planning and legislative actions. The RSCC held a summit at the state Capitol to get statistics on illegal immigration, hear from law enforcement agencies and allow the public to give input on any potential legislation that may be written for 2011.
Current state senators who were at the meeting included Kevin Lundberg, R-Berthoud, David Schultheis, R-Colorado Springs, and Ted Harvey, R-Highlands Ranch.


State Sen.-elect and current State Rep. Kent Lambert is also a part of the RSCC and has already started writing his own illegal immigration bills.
"There's two things: No. 1, secure the borders, and No. 2, enforce the current laws that we have," said Lambert.
Lambert traveled to Arizona this summer to learn more about the controversial Arizona illegal immigration law passed this year.
The main focus of that law was to require state entities to enforce federal immigration laws.
According to Lambert, Colorado's illegal immigration legislation will be a series of bills, not just one piece of legislation like in Arizona.
7NEWS asked Lambert to describe the specific bills that Republican lawmakers plan to introduce.
"I think there's going to be at least one on mandatory E-Verify for state corporations," said Lambert.
E-Verify stands for Electronic Verification Program. It's a program administered by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and is a way employers can check the work status of new employees.
"I don't think it's the job of the employer to ask for that kind of documentation. I think it should be handled at the federal level," said Julieta Quinonez.
7NEWS met Quinonez outside of a rally to allow undocumented students a path to citizenship. The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act would give undocumented students U.S. citizen status if they enter the country before the age of 16, graduate high school or obtain a general education degree, have no criminal record, have been in the U.S. for at least five years prior to the passage of the bill and are 35 or younger. The DREAM Act is not currently a law.
"Currently both my mother and my father don't have status," said Quinonez, a U.S. citizen. "We have politicians who are trying to fix the immigration system by introducing very racist and very laws full of hate that won't do any good to anyone in the country."
Another potential bill would require voters to verify their legal status before being allowed to vote.
Some of the legislation may also come with fines for cities and counties that don't enforce immigration laws.
"For every fine that might be levied by the state, we may be saving a lot of money as well," said Lambert.
He was suggesting the amount of money saved in not providing illegal immigrants taxpayer-funded services would outweigh any fines the state would impose on local jurisdictions for not enforcing the laws.
"This is not just a capricious way of going out and raising revenue, this is a means of getting them in communication with the state," said Lambert.
What may not be included in the packet of legislation would be a bill to allow law enforcement to check the status of people pulled over in a vehicle.
"It opens up the doors for racial profiling," said Quinonez.
"We're not necessarily talking about traffic offenses, we're talking about generally people who have committed crimes," said Lambert.
7NEWS spoke with Tom Tancredo, who said during his run for Governor that he would "stop immigration cold." He said the first step would be the E-Verify program, then an audit of social services being used by illegal immigrants.
With a Democratic-controlled Senate and a Democratic Governor-elect in John Hickenlooper, the Republicans may not get past any bill out of the state House.
"Frankly, if we have an intransigent Governor, maybe the next avenue we'll look at is putting this on the ballot and putting it into the Colorado Constitution," said Lambert. "This isn't a waste of time at all. Obviously, the people have expressed a strong interest in this."
The 2011 Colorado legislature convenes Jan. 12.
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