Monday, June 30, 2014

Denver Civil Rights Groups Furious Over House Immigration Disaster

No More Words and Empty Promises


CIRC Calls for Immediate End to Deportations and Maximum Relief and Protection for Immigrant Families

Senator Micheal Bennet


Washington, D.C. / Denver, CO: Today, President Obama announced that the House Republican leadership informed him directly that they will not pursue a vote on comprehensive immigration reform legislation in 2014. The President stated that he has asked his administration to deliver proposals for executive actions on immigration by the end of summer.

The President said:

"If Congress will not do their job, at least we can do ours. I expect the recommendations before the end of the summer, and I intend to adopt those recommendations without further delay."

The following is a statement by Caroline Casteel, Board President of the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition (CIRC):

After years of struggle to defend against unjust deportations and to keep our families together, we welcome the President's public commitment to pursue executive and administrative immigration reforms. However, the time for more announcements and declarations has long past. Our families and communities are deeply disillusioned and angry by the many promises broken by Congress and the Obama Administration.


Immigration reform has failed again, and unjust deportations and family separations have reached deplorable record numbers.


Meanwhile, Colorado Senator Michael Bennet called on the President to "use His Legal Authority to Ease the Burden on Businesses, Workers, Families".

We call on the President to follow today's announcement with swift, bold, and aggressive executive action to provide the most immediate and beneficial relief and protections possible. For our communities, this is the test through which we will remember and judge President Obama and his administration. We expect him to act on the right side of history and move forward to take the moral and urgent step of ending terrible family separations.

"The Colorado immigrant rights movement will not stop working and fighting until we win permanent relief and protections, both through the strongest immediate executive actions possible, and through more comprehensive legislation in the future" a CIRC spokesperson said.

"We pledge to continue to work to mobilize our communities to the voting polls this November to hold Congress accountable for their failure to pass immigration reform and to demonstrate the pro-immigrant values that define Colorado's electorat
e," CIRC continued.

Frankly, this appears to be an example of polarization which cost Republicans heavily in the last election.  While many pundits blamed the Republican loss on the failure of immigration reform, voters were really expressing their rage at the refusal of both parties, but especially the Republican party, to come to the table with rational compromises.  Meanwhile, tax payers and citizens continue to pay a huge price for the vitriol expressed through a representative system that appears to be failing to represent the greatest minority, a hallowed goal of democracy.