DENVER—Colorado Democrats drove nails in the coffin of this year’s illegal immigration crackdowns pushed by Republicans Monday, when a Senate committee rejected two of the last proposals promoted by the GOP.
The Senate State, Veterans and Military Affairs Committee voted 3-2 along party lines against the final bills to buckle down on illegal immigration.
The first would have shut off state funds from towns that don’t implement a federal immigrant fingerprinting crackdown called “Secure Communities.” The other would have given the Republican secretary of state broader powers to suspend voters who can’t prove their citizenship.
Latino and immigration advocates testified against both measures, which passed the Republican House earlier this term. At times the hearing grew heated.
One immigrant advocate, Hans Meyer of the Colorado immigrant rights coalition, blasted the entire fingerprinting program.
“It’s a mass deportation dragnet program, pure and simple,” Meyer said.
Republican Sen. Ted Harvey, sponsor of both the immigrant bills rejected Monday, bristled at another opponent’s suggestion that the fingerprinting program is racist.
Harvey challenged one opponent, Kenia Morales of the Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights. Morales testified that the fingerprint bill was “racist” and “bigoted.”
“Can you explain how fingerprinting all arrestees—black, white, yellow and red —is a racist program?” Harvey asked.
Morales stood her ground. She replied, “We can’t lie to ourselves and say that this is not a racist bill.”
Democrats on the committee avoided that dispute. But they laid into Republican Secretary of State Scott Gessler, who asked for the voting registry bill allowing him to identify possible non-citizens on state voting rolls and block them from casting ballots unless they can prove they’re citizens.
“Why is this not something else than a witch hunt?” asked Democratic Sen. Rollie Heath.
Another Democrat, Sen. Bob Bacon, challenged Gessler to produce a single conviction of a non-citizen who committed voter fraud.
“What we’re doing here us making a great deal of assumptions without any specific evidence,” Bacon said.
Gessler insisted he wants only to preserve the integrity of state voting rolls.
“I’m not looking to prosecute here, but to make sure voter rolls are accurate,” Gessler said. The same committee earlier rejected another Gessler-based proposal, to require proof of citizenship for new voters.
Monday’s vote leaves alive just one prominent measure related to citizenship pending in the Legislature.
The full Senate gave final approval Monday to a bill allowing Colorado students who are illegal immigrants to attend state schools without paying out-of-state tuition. That measure faces an uphill battle in the Republican House, setting up a likely stalemate on immigration this term.
