A coalition of community members concerned about the threat of local immigration raids packed the board room at Town Hall Tuesday night to ask the Trustees to adopt a resolution about immigration reform.
Autumn Nelson, an Estes Park immigration attorney asked the board to update Resolution 10-18 which was signed by Todd Jirsa on May 22, 2018, when he was mayor. That resolution asked Colorado’s Congressional delegation to advocate for immigration reform.
Nelson told the board that extra protection for immigrants is needed to reinforce provisions the State of Colorado has enacted since 2018 including limiting state and local law enforcement corporation with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in detaining immigrants and prohibiting the federal government from obtaining personal identifying information, including legal status, maintained by the state.
“Many more are listed on the Colorado General Assembly website,” she said. Nelson provides consultation at a free and confidential legal clinic at the EVICS Family Resources Center and is one of the organizers behind the local Citizenship Project.
First to speak was Robert Johnson, a 49-year resident of Estes Park. Johnson spoke of the many challenges and changes he has experienced during his time in Estes and how the community has continued to be vibrant and welcoming to visitors.
“The world comes to Estes Park,” he said. “Immigrant families, our immigrant neighbors, are vital to the well-being of this town we call home. In standing with them, we will affirm our values as a community of welcome, compassion, resilience, and justice.”
Steve Thomas, a resident of four years and a teacher, provided some of the historical information in regard to immigrants to this country.
“Quakers, Catholics, and the Amish Church faced religious persecutions and people looking for economic opportunities. Sometimes they were welcomed and sometimes they were discriminated against. The idealistic message on the Statue of Liberty is ‘give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to be free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore,’ That was Emma Lazarus in 1883,” said Thomas who also referenced Germans refugees from the Prussian wars, Jews from pogroms who came to escape persecution, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights “which included respect for the equality of everyone in the world, regardless of gender.”
Thomas recalled the names of several famous immigrants who have come America including Levi Straus, Andrew Carnegie, Joseph Pulitzer, Albert Einstein, Madeline Albright, and Elon Musk.
Other documents that protect immigrants are “the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of Colorado,” said Chris Fisherkeller.
The Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution states, “nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” The Tenth Amendment reserves powers not delegated to the federal government to the states and the people, it provides the power for each state to create specific laws, rights, and restrictions.
The Colorado Constitution states, “all persons have certain natural, essential and inalienable rights, among which may be reckoned, the right of enjoying and defending their lives and liberties of acquiring, possessing and protecting property and seeking and obtaining their safety and happiness.”
Natasha Pleshkova, who was honored at last fall’s Citizenship Day, is “a proud Ukrainian-American,” she said. “According to the American Immigration Council, foreign born immigrants in Colorado compromise about 10% of the population. They have over 19 billion in spending power and paid $6.6 billion in taxes. We personally paid $8,000 in 2021,” she said.
EVICS executive director Rut Miller became a U.S. citizen in 2018. “Undocumented immigrants have lived here for many years. They are our family members, friends, neighbors, employers, employees, coworkers, classmates, fellow church members, service providers and community volunteers, they are part of the fabric of our community. They are enriching our lives.”
“We have reliable and hardworking members of our workforce who fear driving to and from work every day because they could get pulled over for a minor traffic event, be reported to ICE and not make it home to their children,” said Jenny Forrester, a Colorado native and Estes Park resident. “We have children living in our town who fear coming home from school to find an empty house and their parents deported.”
Linda Bensey has lived and worked in Estes Park for 48 years. A mass deportation in Estes Park would result in a “parallel reduction in the Estes Park School District population,” she said, with corresponding “trauma, grief, loss, and other mental health issues to the student body, to the staff, to support personnel, along with parents. This would also result in reductions in the overall school budget and the reduced ability for our school district to provide the breadth and depth of educational opportunities and progress that it now sees for its preschoolers all the way through 12th grade,” she said.
Carol Thomas brought up that Estes Park is dependent upon its immigrant workforce “to help serve our thriving tourist industry” spending an estimated $500 million in 2021, generating $35 million in local taxes and “reducing the tax burden of every resident by thousands of dollars.”
County resident Jenn Bass reminded the board of the Town of Estes Park’s vision is to “be an ever more vibrant and welcoming mountain community,” she said with its mission being “to provide high quality, reliable resources for the benefits of residents, guests and employees, while being good stewards of public resources in our natural setting.”
Bass said that in addition to hospitality workers, local immigrants are first responders, fire fighters, cleaners, and construction workers, and that a mass deportation will make the Town go backward on its mission and vision.
Many immigrants and their families, friends, neighbors, and employers are concerned about what will happen to individuals who are termed “undocumented” under a new presidental administration following the inauguration on Monday, Jan. 20. There are an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S.
The terms “undocumented immigrant” and more accurately “unauthorized immigrant” applies to foreign-born people who entered the country without authorization, who entered legally but who overstayed a visa, or who violated the terms of their admission.
Additionally, the terms apply to individuals from certain countries with Temporary Protected Status and those who were granted temporary reprieve from deportation through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, sometimes called the Dreamers Program. There are 553,030 people who have been granted DACA status.
There are several other categories of individuals who are not considered legal immigrants, including people who are petitioning for asylum, individuals seeking refugee status, victims of sex and human trafficting who have been granted a T-visa or victims of certain crimes who have suffered mental or physical abuse and are helpful to law enforcement or government officials in the investigation or prosecution of criminal activity who have been granted a U-visa, and individuals married to a U.S. citizen but who have not begun the citizeship or legal permanent resident application process.
Wayne Parks presented a draft resolution to the board that the coalition hopes the Trustees will adopt and the Mayor will sign at a future Town Board meeting.
The incoming WH administration could not have been more clear that the newly elected president is targeting criminal, illegal immigrants. As a person of color, daughter of migrant workers, and a resident of this small Mt community, I know the majority of the folks in this town wouldn’t cross the street for someone who doesn’t look like them.
I recently read on social media that a local was concerned that Estes Park forgot the Spanish-speaking community during its major fire evacuation. It looked as if no one cared about this person’s concern, and it was left unaddressed.
I have first-hand experience being treated poorly in professional positions. As a person of color, I am not good enough for a white-collar job in Estes. Although I hold a college degree and have vast experience performing in top roles in the Valley, Estes Park would only accept me as a labor worker. Apparently, in EP, I am not worthy to use my mind or earn the high salary I am accustomed to.
We know how to read, and this reads like something written by a Confederacy.
“…immigrant workforce “to help serve our thriving tourist industry.”
This phrase should include that they are to serve only in blue-collar positions. Anyone with a formal education need not apply.
Shame on all the employers who illegally hired undocumented workers who are not contributing to our tax base. You put the people in danger of being deported when you hired them. The threat has not just started. It has only now affected you and your cheap labor budget. Illegal immigrants live in fear of deportation 24/7, so you have them at your mercy.
The trustees should not sign this resolution without consideration of how embarrassing it is going to be when our tourists find out we hire undocumented labor. We oppose the 75% of America who voted for the deportation of the criminal, illegal immigrants initiative to remove rapists and violent gang members.
I had $21k stolen from me. The contract worker was an illegal migrant criminal. Estes Park Lumber treated me like a criminal when I asked them to help me stop him from victimizing others. EP is already backwards.
This meeting makes Estes Park look backward by proudly stating Estes Park represses its immigrant community by preferring to keep them undocumented.
I suggest investing time in self-reflection and seeing this situation through moral clarity. Most people in that room know their personal lives don’t include immigrants. As for the restaurant proprietor who immigrated here, please remember that this initiative will not improve lives; it will continue to oppress people from going through the legal channels to become citizens. As citizens they are stronger and less dependent on the mercy of their employer.
The deportation is to target the known rapists, gang members, and drug dealers.