A series of votes to pay for humanitarian aid along the southern U.S. border divided Colorado’s Democratic representatives this week amid other developments on the immigration front.
Voting began Tuesday, when the House passed a $4.5 billion emergency border aid bill, largely along party lines. It had restrictions – stricter health and safety standards for detention facilities, requirements that children be released after three months – that Republicans found unpalatable.
Colorado’s delegation was divided neatly along party lines, with its four Democrats in favor and three Republicans opposed.
“House Democrats need to quit dragging their feet and work with us to protect the American people and solve the crisis on our southern border,” said Rep. Ken Buck, a Windsor Republican and chair of the Colorado Republican Party, after the vote. “I cannot support a $4.5 billion dollar aid package that fails to address the underlying causes of this humanitarian crisis.”
On Wednesday, the Senate voted down the House bill, 37-55. Sen. Cory Gardner, a Yuma Republican, voted against the bill and Sen. Michael Bennet, a Denver Democrat, did not vote.
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The Senate then voted on its own border aid package — $4.6 billion with fewer restrictions than the House version. It passed overwhelmingly, 84-8, with Gardner in favor and Bennet absent. Bennet, a presidential contender, was in Miami on Wednesday and Thursday for debates.
In a bind to either back the Senate bill or worsen a standoff between the chambers of Congress, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi opted to hold a vote on the Senate legislation Thursday. It passed easily, 305-102, over the objections of more liberal House Democrats — including two in Colorado.
“I can’t support a bill that gives our agencies all the money they need to house these migrant kids but does nothing to ensure they are properly cared for,” said Rep. Diana DeGette, a Denver Democrat, after the vote. “Congress has a responsibility to protect these kids. I voted against the bill Congress passed today because it doesn’t do that.”
Rep. Joe Neguse, a Lafayette Democrat, also voted in opposition.
But two other Colorado Democrats, Reps. Ed Perlmutter of Arvada and Jason Crow of Aurora, voted in favor of the bill, as did Republican Reps. Doug Lamborn and Scott Tipton of Colorado. Buck did not vote Thursday.
The votes were just one of several developments on the immigration front this week. In addition:
* Neguse said Congress should investigate GEO Group, the private company that operates ICE’s Aurora detention facility. It has been the site of quarantines and accusations of substandard care.
“We have never been contacted by the congressman,” a GEO Group spokesperson said. “We would welcome the opportunity to sit down with him and his staff to discuss his concerns and tour the facility.”
DeGette, who chairs an investigatory subcommittee, said members of her panel are monitoring the care of migrant children in government custody.
Also, four of the 10 Aurora City Council members penned a letter last weekend condemning what they called “inhumane conditions within the GEO Group facility.”
* The Colorado Rapid Response Network, which operates a hotline for ICE activity, said it confirmed several examples of ICE action in the Denver area this week. The metro area is expected to be the site of increased ICE enforcement early next month after Trump delayed an operation for two weeks June 23.
In one case, ICE came to the door of a Westminster woman but she refused to answer. ICE left, since its agents lacked a warrant. In other cases, agents in unmarked cars stopped immigrants on their way to work, the Rapid Response Network said.
ICE doesn’t comment on specific enforcement actions.
“ICE does not conduct raids,” the agency said in a statement Friday. “ICE performs daily, targeted immigration enforcement operations, which maintain the integrity of U.S. immigration laws, and also help improve public safety by removing criminal aliens from local communities.”
Immigrant rights activists are working to inform undocumented Denverites of their legal rights — and the limits of ICE’s authority.
* At the national level, a pair of Supreme Court decisions added to uncertainty for the immigrant community this week.
Thursday, the court temporarily blocked the Trump administration from adding a citizenship question to the 2020 census. Friday, it said it would hear a case involving Trump’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program for undocumented immigrants who came here as children. That announcement is a setback for DACA supporters, since it could overturn lower court rulings in their favor.
The state of Colorado has been involved in both the census and DACA cases.
“Yesterday, Colorado and the rule of law won,” said Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser at an immigration roundtable event in Denver on Friday, referring to the census ruling. “We have different news today from the Supreme Court.”
At that roundtable, Gardner reiterated his support for protecting DACA beneficiaries. He didn’t directly answer a question about whether Trump had the constitutional authority to end DACA, saying it’s a matter for the Supreme Court to decide. He says his focus is on Senate solutions.
“Congress should now – today, tomorrow – get DACA passed,” Gardner told local reporters.
