Aurora – U.S. Sen. Wayne Allard asked local officials for hard dollar amounts spent on illegal immigrants at a hearing Wednesday while immigrant advocates protested outside, calling the meeting “political posturing” and “unbalanced.”
“This system is a tragedy, and people are suffering,” said Lisa Duran, executive director of Rights for All People. “The people who are putting on these political dog and pony shows are not trying to solve the problem.”
More than 300 people gathered for the field hearing by the Senate Budget Committee, one of several congressional hearings on immigration taking place nationally this summer.
Allard said he wanted to get a price tag for illegal immigration.
“While immigration reform will be expensive, not doing anything to curb the current tide of illegal immigration is the real expense,” the Republican senator said.
A number of state and local government witnesses were called to testify before Allard on the cost of immigration, including Gov. Bill Owens and Aurora Mayor Ed Tauer.
Immigrant advocates protested outside the meeting, saying their requests to speak before the panel were denied.
Both sides of the debate yelled at one another outside the city hall building.
“They are overwhelming our country, our jails and our schools,” yelled Frosty Wooldridge, a Louisville anti-illegal-immigrant activist.
His views were met with chants from the immigrant activists.
Owens asked Allard, during his testimony, to look at federal requirements for identification, which include birth certificates and passports, both of which he says can easily be forged.
“I believe the federal government should tighten up its own rules to help us on the state level to enforce our own laws,” Owens said. He said state officials would like to limit identification to hard-to-forge documents but cannot because of federal regulations.
Robert Rector of the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation told Allard that the Senate bill, which provides a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants already in the U.S., will cost the federal government around $16 billion in added benefits once the 9 million to 10 million illegal immigrants become citizens. Under the law, those who qualify for legal status would be able to become citizens in 11 years.
He said the overall cost over 35 years could reach $50 billion. He attributed those costs to additional government services and more people immigrating to join their families in the U.S.
Paul Cullinan of the Congressional Budget Office forecast an increase of $48 billion in federal spending for mandatory programs and an increase of $44 billion in revenues in the next decade.
A rise in immigration, he said, could have a positive effect on the Social Security Administration’s finances, he said.
Helen Krieble of the Vernon K. Krieble Foundation, a conservative public-policy organization, floated her idea of letting private-sector employment agencies issue visas to workers to enter the U.S. without any pathway to citizenship.
Protesters held a shadow hearing on immigration Tuesday evening to decry Allard’s hearing. It featured testimony from workers, citizens and faith leaders.
More than 10 organizations, including Rights for All People, the American Friends Service Committee and Confianza, requested to speak at the Allard hearing and said they were denied.
“We can’t fix the problems if no one is willing to look at the facts,” Duran said. “We wanted to provide a more balanced view, but it seems the senator was not that interested in that.”
Ryan Smith, who works for Allard, said he did not receive any requests from the groups.
Staff writer Elizabeth Aguilera can be reached at 303-954-1372 or eaguilera@denverpost.com.