Immigration Constitutional Amendment?
None by KCPW
Colorado Group Wants To Deny Government Benefits To Undocumented Workers
The fight over immigration reform is bottled up in the Senate in Washington, D.C. as activists on both sides pressure lawmakers.
Now, a Colorado group is taking the immigration fight directly to the voters in that state. "Defend Colorado Now" is pushing a state constitutional amendment that would deny government services to undocumented workers.
Waldo Benevides is a spokesperson for the group. He tells KCPW's Bryan Schott that he believes this idea will catch on elsewhere.
Email to a friendPosted in KCPW Newsroom. Copyright 2008 KCPW
1. R. Alsop said:
This is a hare-brained idea that is roughly akin to cutting off your nose to spite your face. No, it's worse than that. For the good of society generally and for the integrity of our community, all members of a community must receive, at a minimum, (1) vaccination and care for communicable diseases, (2) fire protection, (3) police protection, (4) protection from domestic and child abuse, (5) clean water, (6) sewer service, (7) emergency health care, (8) education, and all similar services. This proposal would create an undocumented, unregulated underworld of uneducated poor people who carry untreated communicable diseases and have to resort to crime in order to live. That might give Waldo Benevides and his fellows some strange visceral satisfaction, but it certainly doesn't make me feel safer. I wonder if his proposal would allow undocumented workers to be exempt from tax withholding from their paychecks, since they wouldn't be receiving any public services.
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