A contingent from a Durango immigrant rights group gathered Thursday at College Drive and Main Avenue to urge U.S. Rep. Scott Tipton, R-Cortez, to support broad immigration reform.
“We need real immigration reform,” said Nicole Mosher, director of Compañeros: Four Corners Immigrant Resource Center. “We need immigration reform not just for immigrants, but for the U.S. economy and to keep families united.”
Supporters held signs: “Tipton America Needs Immigration Reform Now,” “Reform Immigration for America,” “Tipton Needs to Hear Your Voice,” “Reform Not Raids.”
The rally was the first of five in three days scheduled by immigration groups. Groups will rally in Pueblo and Gunnison today and in Montrose and Grand Junction on Saturday.
Mosher said immigrant groups associate Tipton with the Red Card Solution to immigration reform, which is based on border security and a guest-worker program using job-specific, time-limited, electronically coded work permits.
Immigrants want a broader solution that includes families and educational opportunities for young people brought to the U.S. as children by their parents.
Tipton’s press aide, Joshua Green, issued a statement Thursday outlining Tipton’s position on immigration.
Tipton, the statement said, supports immigration reform through “verifiable border security and a strengthened guest worker program” in order to not face the same situation again in 20 years.
“Congressman Tipton believes that we can all have compassion, and should, for children brought here through no accord of their own,” the statement said. “To that end, the House is currently in the process of working on a reform plan, that through a step-by-step approach, would fix our country’s immigration system.”
The Colorado Immigrant Rights coalition says the Red Card Solution is not the solution. It unduly burdens employers with extra work involving work permits; destabilizes families and offers no path to citizenship; and is linked to white supremacist organizations that contend that the 14th Amendment is not a settled issue.
The 14th Amendment says people born in the United States are citizens.
daler@dudrangoherald.com
