AURORA | An Aurora City Council resolution bolstering support for a children of illegal immigrants raised in the United States was waylaid again Wednesday when a council committee moved the issue off to a city commission.
As promised at the Aurora City Council meeting earlier in the week, a resolution that asked council members to support the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy was reviewed in the Management and Finance Committee Wednesday.
After the meeting, city staff said they didn’t know when the resolution would be back to the full city council for a vote.
The committee of three council members decided to send the resolution, and a broader letter addressing immigration reform as a whole, to the city’s Immigrant and Refugee Commission for input. Committee members also vowed to meet with Colorado’s two senators and Aurora Congressman Mike Coffman. Coffman has been vocal on extending DACA’s protections.
Given that direction, there isn’t a clear timeline ahead for the measure, which doesn’t require funds or action from the city. The resolution was introduced by Councilman Charlie Richardson, saying it would be symbolic.
After Monday’s decision, Richardson claimed the move was so some council members could avoid taking a stance on the issue before voters decide a city council election that begins with mail ballots next month. Two incumbents, Sally Mounier and Marsha Berzins, are up for re-election and both voted Monday against bringing the DACA proposal up for a Monday vote.
About 15 community members attended the committee meeting Wednesday and held signs throughout that said Aurora deserves to know where council stands on the issue. There was no public comment at the committee meeting, which is standard protocol for city council committee meetings.
Mounier said Monday she preferred a resolution that addressed comprehensive immigration reform, not just DACA.
On Wednesday, she added that her hope is “at a maximum the Congress addresses those living here without authorization, and at a minimum address border security, a guest worker program, and especially for those who are here legally and have been waiting for years to become naturalized.”
Berzins, who is not on the Management and Finance Committee, was in attendance. She said her vote Monday night to refer the resolution to the committee was for consistency purposes.
“I came today to speak about the hypocrisy I saw on Monday evening,” Berzins said. “Some of the same people who stood up and criticized the ballot issue of the racetrack just a few weeks ago about there being no process — and I was one of them — are now saying there doesn’t need to be a process on this.”
Berzins said she applauded federal lawmakers working on a fix to keep in place the DACA protections for young immigrants who were brought illegally to the U.S. as children.