Nothing like when the home team shines when it’s our turn at bat, and it’s even cooler taking swings at some of the worst America seems endlessly to offer.
Aurora city lawmakers are stepping up to the plate to show the metro area, and the world, real solutions to the problem of illegal immigration other than hate. This despite the growing national chant to treat our Latino immigrant neighbors like they are less human than the rest of us,
The likes of Donald Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz call their push to expunge the country of millions of undocumented immigrants all kinds of things: the rule of law, border security, fair play. It’s just demagogues inciting hate and fear and then pandering to frightened and misled Americans.
Not the Americans here in Aurora, however.
Led by conservative Republican Councilwoman Sally Mounier, whose ward encompasses much of the East Colfax corridor in northwest Aurora, lawmakers this month tentatively agreed to spend $400,000 for a lot at East Colfax Avenue and Dayton Street. They’re creating a sort of day-laborer center, which will be used chiefly by Latino immigrants.
Everybody wins here, folks.
For more than a decade, men have gathered near or on Colfax, looking for day work. Construction bosses, warehouses, movers and all kinds of businesses will drive up to the group of men, offer some a day’s work and usually drive away in a truck or van with a few guys.
You can imagine the consternation this has caused over the years among cops, concerned about pedestrians in traffic, and businesses, justifiably freaked out about guys urinating in alleys and small crowds of men making others nervous about patronizing the long-struggling Colfax strip. Chief complainants, however, have been those who’ve looked with disdain at these men because they speak little or no English and represent what Trump says are the “rapists” and “drug dealers” sent here by Mexico.
The morning gatherings have been crucial for the men — who are not all here illegally — to make a living. The guys can easily make more than minimum wage — if they get paid.
There’s no shortage of unscrupulous people eager to take advantage of the men and their situation. Too often, men would agree to work for a day, dig holes, rake gravel and move boxes, and then have their “boss” either pay them less than they agreed, or not even at all. Sometimes, the day laborers are stranded far from home by despicable “bosses” who know they almost never tell.
State and city officials have worked over the years to try and resolve those issues, but everyone has been stymied by the fact that no matter what Aurora would do, the men are going to gather on or near Colfax every morning to look for a day’s work, and employers will go there to find them.
The Trumpers and Cruzers want to force police to try and chase off the men every day, which is clearly unconstitutional — but, hey, there seems to be little concern for the U.S. Constitution coming from those folks. Aurora, however, has decided to quit kicking the can down the avenue and find a solution.
The lot will offer a construction-like trailer where workers can be matched with potential employers, public toilets, and a traffic plan to keep everyone safe. The next step is to work with El Centro Humanitario — a nonprofit that works with day laborers in Aurora and Denver — and area churches, to create a program that helps these hard-working men make better lives for themselves. To help them become full-faith members of the Aurora community, instead of living on the fringes and the shadows.
It’s the best thing to do for these men, their families and the people of Aurora who want to see them get help.It’s even good news for those who would be pleased if Trump, Cruz or someone like them would deport these men. Xenophobic organizations like Stand With Arizona (and Against Illegal Immigration) and outright racists will clang the bells again, saying Aurora is a “sanctuary city” for taking the right road here.
I guess Aurora has become a sanctuary of sorts. It’s a sanctuary for everyone from the shrill, populist hate and outright human rights violations so many Americans inflict upon ourselves because our fears are fed by twisted lies of the likes of Trump and Cruz.
This all became an issue because Aurora area businesses like hiring people who work hard without demanding big wages and expensive benefits. Police like a community where people watch out for each other and innately follow the rules. These men appreciate a place that’s safe and able to help them do what they came here for in the first place: get a job. As it turns out, they’re just like us and nothing at all like Trump and Cruz, and we’re just taking care of our own. That’s a home run, Aurora.
Follow @EditorDavePerry on Facebook an Twitter, or email dperry@aurorasentinel.com.
No Dave, ‘everyone doesn’t win’ here, Americans LOSE.
I will never understand the un-thinking minds of liberals, who think enforcing our nations laws is a criminal activity. That someone who thinks ‘open borders’ are bad for America, that a politician that calls for ‘enforcing the laws of this nation’ is a horrible person.
Have any of you determined, if you get more on board, with this nonsense of ‘human rights’ to the point of ridiculous, meaning, when will you decide that these ‘world travelers’ have to pay attention to our laws, or do you believe that they will never have to obey or follow any rules or laws? People just roaming around the country, from all over the world, not bound by any rule of law, demanding ‘restrooms and comfort stations’ for their convenience, having newspaper editors rushing to their defense, applauding political representatives for buying in to this notion of ‘fair play’.
We have a nation, America, we have laws and rules for ALL, not just honest, tax paying citizens, but all, without same, there is chaos, and you support that in the name of ‘human rights’ or some such other nonsense.
The illegals who drives a vehicle into your property and cannot pay, no insurance, no drivers license (although they want to give them licenses to drive now, what a mistake) is without fault in your mind? Those who don’t pay their ‘fair share’, also okay with you? All in the name of what you consider ‘human rights’ or ‘fair play’? Nonsensical.
gooey will never understand much of anything let alone “unthinking minds”, like his own for example. Thats’ why he writes this befuddled nonsense when Dave gets his goat.
gooey’s one of those honest tax paying citizens for the “quack” and a supporter of human abuse. He’s a clown from another planet.
Not much of a liberal bias here, huh? Ted Cruz is is one of the best Republican candidates, as far as supporting and enforcing the Constitution. This article was nothing but one sided liberal/progressive garbage.
And tell us John since you seem to be a Constitution wing nut, what does it mean to “enforce the Constitution”? The 2nd Amendment maybe?
While we’re at it, are you under any sort of restraint from exercising your Constitutional rights? Give us a rundown genius!
I love the noise and whining from wing nut righties when they start whining about the Constitution this and that. Most of them read a glen beck comic book and consider themselves Constitutional scholars. What jerks!
So proud of Sally Mounier and our other representatives in Aurora for their wisdom and compassion. May actions of kindness smother the hate-mongering!
Idiots all. We have LAWS in this country,you liberal ‘human rights’ and ‘civil rightists’ will never see a cause or behavior you can’t get behind, you’re all nutty.
gooey’s on another rant. His racist and abuse proclivities are obvious. That’s cause he’s a “quack” man. He loves the donald.
I didn’t see a racist remark from gofastgo anywhere on here.
gooey doesn’t make racist remarks. He simply wallows in racism.
Liberals have a name for everything that opposes their way of thinking. ‘open borders’ ‘any behavior accepted and promoted’ ‘anything goes’ laws, or lack of any law, that’s a liberal pov.
What did he say that was racist? Now stating that we are a country of laws is considered racist by the looney left?
Not sure how you arrived at that looney conclusion. gooey needs all the support he can get. He’s join to need a straight jacket before long.
Rye, I think you’re the one coming unhinged on this topic.
Think what you like! “Unhinged” is gofastgo’s specialty and now appears to be your’s as well.
Gofastgo, if you happened, by accident of birth, to have been born in a country where you could not find work in order to feed your family, I hope you’d come to a play where we “nutty” “idiots” are, because we would accept you and admire your willingness to work hard while far from your home and loved ones. Gofastgo and others of your ilk, what happened to your compassion and your sense of goodness? Did you ever have them, or have they been missing since birth? My heart breaks for you. What sad, selfish, lonely lives you must lead.
We have laws in this country, and Legal means of immigrating to America. Others wait and immigrate properly, law-abiding, conscientious people, who, I’m sure, have families and yearn for a better life for them. But, they don’t break our laws as their first action in becoming American, the are upstanding and proud, not underhanded and criminal. Don’t confuse compassion, with ‘the rule of law’, for, if you do, you have chaos. There is evil in this world, you apparently never ran into any, and I hope you don’t. And what do you say about the ‘laborers’ who gather on downtown street corners to take jobs away from union workers? Okay with you too? Put your compassion in it’s proper place.
I don’t think you’d “wait and immigrate properly” if your spouse and children were starving to death. How long is the “wait” list for “proper” immigration? About 20 years, maybe??? I have run into plenty of evil in this world, most of it coming from narrow-minded, fearful xenophobes like you. I suspect you probably think all immigrants should learn English, but you don’t even seen to know that “it’s” is a contraction and not a possessive pronoun!!! Sad, sad, sad.
Open borders is not the solution. At some point all the yearning, huddled masses will overwhelm our welfare system. What’s wrong with the orderly, legal system we have in place. Why should lawbreakers come to the head of the line.
Can you elaborate on your claim “lawbreakers are coming to the head of the line”. Sounds like a sound bite from the repub Presidential debates or more apt, fear and ignorance 2016.
Taking jobs form “union workers”? I haven’t laughed this hard all day.
gofastgo is an “accident of birth”. He certainly doesn’t resemble anything with human intelligence or human decency.
And yet, people like Trump and Cruz are happy to shut down the government and send hard-working Americans home with no pay. It’s good to know some people in the world still have a sense of charity and a bit of their soul left. Good for them. Gotta have something to incite Googoo to post more frothing lunacy.
Haven’t you heard THE USA IS $18.5 TRILLION IN DEBT. Shut down the government, you bet. That bunch of numbskulls are the one’s responsible for a VA hospital in Denver going $1.4 BILLION over estimates, they spend a trillion more than they take in in taxes, and you rumble about ‘shutting down the government’ best idea yet.
gooey hasn’t heard. Ryan just passed a budget bill with billions in expenditures with no offsets adding more to the debt. But gooey knows it all. Just ask him.
Both sides of the aisle should be ashamed of that crappy spending bill.
No they shouldn’t Only the looney right side of the aisle should be ashamed.
I agree. We didn’t elect Ryan to ‘go along to get along’. We need REAL conservatives in congress, we need politicians who don’t owe any favors to anyone, we owe that to America and Americans.
So! Will the real gooey stand up. The one who loves the “quack”, thinks racism is moral, and thinks real conservatives in Congress should be just like himself, smug know it alls.
News to gooey. The politicians gooey idealizes are bought and pains for Koch boys.
Since you’re is such love with the day laborers, its a crying shame that the new “employment” center the city is buying couldn’t be located directly next to the Sentinel offices. Are you willing to pay naming rights on the hut? You are literally encouraging employers to pay substandard wages. As a taxpayer, how much do you suppose the day workers are paying in income taxes? Perhaps the employers preying on these workers should be providing the facility from which they reap rather than the Aurora taxpayers???
Dave,
Which human rights violations are Aurora citizens allowing to occur as it pertains to illegal immigration?
Dave Perry’s credo appears to be “come one, come all”. No sense of propriety, no sense of legality, no sense of justice for those legally here struggling to find work. It’s one thing to look the other way at the current status quo, but to spend nearly half a million taxpayer dollars to facilitate activities of those here illegally, the residents of Aurora should howl in protest.
Aurora residents should “howl in protest”. Doesn’t appear they are. It would appear you and the smattering of right wing noise makers continually complaining whenever Dave Perry writes something, are doing all the “howling”.
80% of Muslim immigrants go straight to welfare for life, 65% of Mexican immigrants are on welfare illegally. Just a few facts for your stinking lying Democrats who would destroy the country simply to import more votes.
que the uninformed right wing nuts…