Re: “” Jan. 6 Chuck Plunkett column.
In either 1975 or 1976 a large group of Hispanic Americans came into my office complaining that they had just been fired by a local packing plant and replaced by illegal immigrants. Hell of a deal for their employer who now paid the new (and illegal) workers only 60 percent of what these Americans had been making.
I watched in the following 12 years in office, as time and again American workers were replaced by illegal immigrants, particularly in the construction and restaurant industries. Additionally, my Labor Department estimated that 40 percent of the illegal workforce were paid in cash and thus most their wages escaped taxation. To those of you who justify or defend illegal immigration, exactly what would you have told these hard working Americans?
Richard D. Lamm, Governor of Colorado 1975-1987, Denver
More than 750,000 undocumented youths have received temporary protections from deportation and work authorization under President Obama’s executive action, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), since June 2012.
As a recipient of the program, I became eligible for a Social Security Number, thus enabling me to stabilize my family’s economic and household conditions. I attained authorization to drive and the opportunity to pursue a higher education in Computer Science on scholarship due to qualification with deferred action. My accomplishments are a few examples of what DACA is capable of providing, as other recipients have purchased cars and homes, made great strides in academic research, and opened up businesses.
Despite ineligibility to receive federal benefits, recipients contribute substantial amounts of payroll taxes annually, the economic and societal benefits of DACA are prominent on a national and local level, therefore continuation of the program or action for permanency is imperative.
Cheska Perez,Denver
My son, Sgt. Brandon Mendoza, a Mesa, Ariz. police officer, was killed by an illegal criminal by the name of Raul Silva-Corona. My son was hit on his way home from his shift of May 12, 2014. Raul Silva Corona was drunk, three times the legal limit, high on meth, and traveling more than 35 miles the wrong way on four different freeways in Phoenix before slamming head-on into my son’s car, killing him.
Police officials at the time said Silva-Corona had prior criminal history. Silva-Corona, who was also killed in the crash, had lived in the country illegally for at least 20 years, racking up a criminal record. In 1994, he plead guilty in Colorado to criminal conspiracy charges, while prosecutors dismissed other charges such as “leaving the scene of an accident,” “assault” and “burglary.” He also took a plea deal in 2002 for other charges. Then, he was apprehended at the Mexico border in 2002 while trying to re-enter the United States and taken to Adams County, Colorado to face charges from 1994 that he never showed up in court for. Your state is the reason my son was killed. Had you deported and/or properly charged this illegal criminal without showing him leniency, this accident would not have happened.
Mary Ann Mendoza,Mesa, Ariz.
My parents and I came to the U.S. in 1951 as legal refugees fleeing the bleak landscape of post-World War II Europe. As “displaced persons,” we lived in a tent in a refugee camp for most of the winter of 1951 before boarding a U.S. Navy cargo ship bound for Ellis Island, where we were processed and put on a bus to Chicago. Our luggage, containing all that my parents owned in the world, was promptly stolen. And so began life in America, with a toddler in-tow, a few dollars, and the clothes on their backs.
Everything about their journey was difficult, but it was “legal.” Within six years they became tax-paying citizens and home owners, a fact that astonished them for the rest of their long lives. The divisive debate about immigration substitutes sentimentality for common sense when it refuses to address the difference between those who come here legally and those who do not. Immigration is a human right only when it conforms to the law.
In the same way that you or I have the right to refuse entry to a stranger who appears at our front door in the middle of the night, so does any government have a right to stop a stranger at its gates. I am not a racist because I insist that immigrants should enter this country legally. I certainly remember how my parents struggled to achieve their citizenship.
Diversity is important to this nation. Without our immigrants we would be nothing, and I’m sympathetic to those families who have suffered the cruelties of selectively enforced immigration legislation. But ignoring the meaning of “legal” is to diminish the value of all other laws that form a legitimate society.
Gojan Nikolich, Lakewood
When I was 12 years old, my parents left everything they had in order to provide a better life for me and my brothers here in the US. Ever since we arrived, they have worked hard to provide for us without any government help, because as immigrants we never qualified.
Seeing them work so hard made me want to do the same in school. It paid off—after high school I won a full tuition scholarship to the University of Nebraska at Kearney. After I finished school, I couldn’t work lawfully until 2012, when President Obama announced Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.
President-Elect Trump might abolish this program. I, along with thousands of others, don’t know what to do if the program is terminated. Millions of people don’t even have this temporary protection. Access to the lawful work we want to do is not available, and there is no line for us, there never has been.
Juan Gallegos,Denver
Prior to doing his story, Denver Post Editorial Editor Chuck Plunkett needed to visit Ft. Morgan and Greeley slaughter houses and meatpacking facilities. There he’ll see the low-wage, immigrant “slaves” who are subsidized by welfare paid for with my taxes.
Once upon a time, those were well-paying American jobs. Construction work and other industries are following suit. This situation is a transfer of wealth from the American middle-class to industry leaders who shamefully seek a large number of foreign workers who will work for low wages under bad conditions.
Janice Taylor, Colorado Springs
Now that I have reached age 70 and am still married with children and grandchildren of our own, my attitude on the immigration issue is exactly in line with Barbara Jordan’s legal immigration recommendations and leadership — not Ronald Reagan’s. President Reagan’s amnesty was a mistake and every subsequent amnesty has been a bigger mistake. Diluting the value of American citizenship is not a Constitutional role of government. We need to grow the economy — not necessarily the population.
What America’s founding fathers created in our form of government and passed down to us is priceless. Work permits and citizenship should not be granted by lottery and handed out to just anyone without adequate proof in each and every case that the best interests of the United States will be served. While my father’s American roots go back many generations, my mother was born in Minnesota to Swedish immigrants. As a newly naturalized American, her father volunteered to serve in WWI and was gassed by the Germans — but survived with some respiratory damage.
I happen to be a Vietnam veteran with seven degrees including three masters degrees and a doctorate resulting in nearly 500 semester hours of undergraduate and graduate credits. Two master of engineering degrees from Mines and UCCS were completed after I turned 60. My extensive recent experience in the job market leads me to believe that most staffing managers would rather hire an immigrant (either legal or illegal) at the lowest possible salary than offer any experienced and well-educated American applicant the opportunity to work at competitive rates. It’s called being over-qualified (aka age discrimination which is rampant in both the public and the private sector).
Does this make me a racist for favoring mandatory e-Verify? I don’t think so. We were founded as a nation of laws and our social contract requires the enforcement of laws. The immigration story that really matters is embedded in the absolutely free Hillsdale College Constitution 101 online course. Perhaps successful completion of that course should be required in order to work legally and for anyone to continue having the privilege of voting.
William A. Good, Highlands Ranch
Re: “,” Jan. 5 Morgan Smith guest column.
Morgan Smith notes that President-elect Trump cites NAFTA as “the worst trade deal in history,” but seems to rebut Trump’s sentiment by citing the creation of 2.2 million U.S. jobs in 2015. The jobs number tells only one side of the story on NAFTA. Smith fails to mention that NAFTA displaced many Mexican families living on rural farms. More than 2.5 million Mexicans lost their livelihood and were forced to migrate to the U.S. in search of jobs to feed their families.
Several years ago I visited rural Mexico and listened to stories of would-be immigrants. One set of cousins had previously grown potatoes and harvested the crop for both food and for sale at local markets. After NAFTA, the local people could buy potatoes from Canada for less money than the cousins could afford to sell their local product. Given economies of scale, potatoes shipped thousands of miles south from Canada were cheap enough to put the cousins out of business and out of their homes.
We need to recognize the role that our country has played in creating policies that create unlivable conditions in countries to the south which lead to forced migration.
Laura Dravenstott, Centennial
I am an “un-DACA-mented” educator at a low-income high school in Colorado Springs. Today, I work with students from all over the world at a center program for English Language Learners. Many of them are refugees, displaced by war and violence. Some are undocumented. To all of them I am an example of the difficult-yet-hopeful struggle immigrants endure while living in the United States. However, if DACA is taken away, the living, breathing example of hope that I represent to them will be lost.
I was born in Cochabamba, Bolivia, raised in Los Angeles, California. I graduated with honors from the California State University of Los Angeles. DACA is the only reason I am able to exercise my knowledge, experience, and skills. Ending DACA would be a tragedy for myself, my students, and our Colorado community. We need comprehensive immigration reform immediately.
Luis Antezana,Colorado Springs
I am a Mexican descendant who grew up in El Paso, Texas, a thriving border city with a large immigrant population. Growing up, many of my friends and classmates were from Mexico and Central America – they were able to attend school and their families were contributing members of our community. I’m concerned about the new administration’s rhetoric on immigration policy and what that will mean to families like these.
Of particular concern is the potential repeal of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. DACA recipients are contributing members of society, able to go to school, attend college and hold jobs. If DACA is repealed, I hope that Senators Bennet and Gardner will work together to support the BRIDGE Act, introduced in December by Senator Graham. At the very least this will ensure DACA recipients will not be deported. Furthermore, Congress needs to work towards a more permanent solution.
Kim Hicks,Denver
When I was an infant in 1944, my minister step-grandfather, Ralph McFarling, served as a proponent of the Japanese-American detainees in the Colorado Amache Internment Camp. He represented the detainees with the U.S. Army custodians in various matters, such as inadequate meals, very cold barracks and a lack of water. He later wrote very compelling papers about his experiences. Here is a quote from one titled “The Day the Ban Was Lifted:”
“The Japanese – some six thousand now – living in tar-paper covered army barracks went about their daily tasks, much as they had for the past three and one-half years. But for them, the day was not like any other day, for today the ban was lifted and they were now free to return to their homes in California. It was not, however, as one might have thought, a day for wild expressions of hilarity and rejoicing, but rather a day for quiet reflection and long, long, thoughts of the past and the future.”
Chuck Patrick, Lone Tree
At age 23, I received a Champion of Change Award and was honored at the White House for being an educator that supports undocumented students and families. None of this would have been possible without the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. DACA, which allows young immigrants temporary relief from deportation, changed my life. I was able to attend college, become a Teach for America teacher, and eventually work in community engagement for a Denver charter school.
When I applied for DACA in 2012 shortly after President Obama enacted it, I knew that it was not a permanent solution to our country’s broken immigration system. And now with the incoming administration, it is even more apparent. If President-elect Trump moves forward with his promise to repeal DACA, I urge senators Michael Bennet and Cory Garner to support the BRIDGE Act and allow fellow DACA recipients to continue contributing to our country.
Marissa Molina,Denver
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