Latino Republicans and immigrant rights groups react with fury to immigration bill (Colorado)

http://coloradoindependent.com/72401/latino-republicans-and-immigrant-rights-groups-react-with-fury-to-immigration-bill

An Arizona-style immigration bill introduced in Colorado yesterday has met with fierce resistance from immigrant rights groups. The long expected immigration bill by Sen. Kent Lambert, R-Colorado Springs, sparked a firestorm of condemnation from local civil rights groups.

SB11-054 (pdf), which comes on the heals of an announcement of a bill promoted by Democrats to provide in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants, seems almost certain to die in the Democratically controlled Senate.

“We are against the bill,” said Steve Rodriguez, Colorado director of SOMOS Republicans, a national organization of Latino Republicans. “If they can arrest people without a warrant just because they think that person may be in the country illegally, then they can go to your house if they suspect you are an illegal immigrant.”

Rodriguez was bothered by the fact that Lambert and other legislators have been to Arizona to meet with Russell Pearce, one of the authors of that state’s anti-immigration legislation. “They’ve even met with FAIR (the Federation for American Immigration Reform), which has white supremacist leanings. If they want to have an honest debate on the issue, they should have talked to other groups.

“I am extremely concerned that the Republican Party in Colorado is being taken over by these extreme groups. A bill like this would tarnish the state’s reputation at a time when we are trying to attract jobs, which should be the primary job of the legislature right now,” Rodriguez said.

When you lie down with dogs........