AURORA | U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Aurora, said he stands with Aurora City Council’s support for comprehensive immigration reform, but doesn’t agree with their view that the U.S. Senate immigration bill should be passed into law.
Eight Aurora City Council members signed on to a letter sent to the Colorado’s congressional delegation earlier this month to support an immigration bill passed in the U.S. Senate in June and waiting for a U.S. House vote. It’s not unusual for local governments to advocate for federal laws, Coffman said.
“We have a strong immigrant population (in Aurora) that has lots of challenges due to immigration law,” Coffman said. “I commend city council for wanting to support comprehensive immigration reform.”
However, he said, he won’t be supporting the bipartisan bill passed in the U.S. Senate.
Though he agrees on a path to citizenship for young people who were brought to the U.S. by their parents, he said undocumented immigrants shouldn’t apply for permanent citizenship until the border is secure and all immigration laws are being enforced.
The city council members who signed the letter sent to Congress are: Aurora Mayor Steve Hogan, Council members Bob LeGare, Bob Broom, Barb Cleland, Debi Hunter Holen, Molly Markert, and Brad Pierce. Council members Sally Mounier and Marsha Berzins said they also support immigration reform but did not sign onto the letter. Councilman Bob Roth said he’s more concerned with local issues that directly affect Aurora residents than federal laws.
A letter by the council members was sent to the state’s congressional delegation the week of July 8 asking them to act on immigration reform as soon as possible. It’s widely expected that the bill will not see a vote until after Congress breaks for August recess.
“We’ve got a lot of people in this city and state who are affected by what happens, or what doesn’t happen,” Hogan said. “Without a solution, it’s hurting our residents, and it’s hurting businesses. (A bill) would help families and strengthen our neighborhoods.”
LeGare said he knows his support for immigration reform will upset some fellow conservatives, but he said giving Colorado’s undocumented immigrants a chance at a better future is “the right thing to do.”
“These are hardworking people, doing the things that need to be done in this country and they graduate from high school but they’re stuck in low-wage jobs, living in the shadows,” he said.
In Aurora’s Ward I, which includes north Aurora and the Anschutz Medical Campus, about 40 percent of all residents are immigrants.
Mounier, who represents that ward, also says she supports comprehensive immigration reform but did not know council members were sending letters to Congress. She said a complete overhaul of immigration rules needs to happen, and it’s long overdue.
“Border security and a path to citizenship are two parts of a hundred-part situation with immigration and immigration issues, and I want the totality to be addressed,” she said. “I want Congress to act today.”
The letter urges Colorado’s congressional representatives, including Coffman, to support the bill passed by the U.S. Senate last month.
“While we may not agree with every single provision in the bill, we recognize that it’s our best chance in a generation to fix our broken system,” council members wrote in the letter.
The letter was encouraging to members of immigrant rights groups in Aurora that have sent hundreds of letters to Congress over the past several months, urging them to pass an immigration overhaul bill.
“It shows a really broad coalition of support,” said Lee Ann Gott, a member of Aurora-based Rights for All People and a retired Aurora Public Schools teacher who now teaches citizenship classes to immigrants.
The passage of a comprehensive immigration bill would directly impact Aurora, since the city has a high concentration of immigrants, many of whom are undocumented, she said.
One of those undocumented immigrants is Gerardo Noriega, an Aurora resident who graduated from Smoky Hill High School in 2008 and volunteers for Rights for All People.
Noriega faced deportation several months ago, but was recently awarded “deferred action” status, which means the federal government will not prosecute him for being an illegal immigrant because he was brought here from Mexico by his parents.
He hopes the council members’ letter will have clout in Congress, because for him, a comprehensive immigration reform bill is personal. The passage of a reform bill would mean he’d be allowed to vote, pay taxes and go to college and become an auto mechanic.
“It means achieving the dream of becoming a citizen of the U.S. and being able to give back to the country which I’ve always considered my home,” he said.
The landmark bill passed by the Senate last month would tighten border security, expand the highly skilled worker program and set up new guest worker arrangements for lower-skilled workers and farm laborers. It would also provide a pathway to citizenship for many of the 11 million immigrations illegally in the U.S., one that includes paying fines, learning English and taking other steps.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Has the Aurora City Council read the Senate bill that they want the House to pass? If they have read it, do they understand it? Most of the Senators who voted for it have not read it – so how can they understand it – yet they voted for it! If the city council has not read it and understand it, how can they ask the Colorado state Representatives to vote for the Senate bill if/when it comes up for a vote in the House? Why is it the “right thing to do” to give illegals the right to become US citizens when they are breaking our laws? Actually the right thing that should have been done is for illegals to not have come to the US without permission! Then there would be no problems with the children they shouldn’t have brought into the US. There would be no problems with their living in darkness here. Yes, very one seems to want to come and live in the US. Why should these illegals now march and protest their situation here? Why should they be demanding that we change our laws to accommodate them? Our laws are pretty straight forward about entering, living, working in the US without the proper papers.