Sandy Mullins, CCDB Executive Director

1544 Race Street

Denver, Colorado 80206

T: 303-758-2454

F: 303-321-7781

sandymullins@ccdb.org

 

 

 

 

 

            First, let’s be honest.  In today’s global economy, immigration is THE most difficult policy issue facing our society  Why?  Because this issue challenges traditional notions of the nation-state, our culture, our society, and our economy.  In the immediate future, we face no other policy issue with a similar magnitude.

 

How is this complex policy problem treated in the national media?  Like a ridiculous, rhetorical, sound-bite football.  Television and newspapers project stark black - white camps.  People are either lumped in the “soft on immigration” camp (pro open borders) or the “tough on immigration” camp (pro a closed and militarized border).

 

Lets turn to the local theatre.

 

The Play – The Great Immigration Debate (A Melodrama)

The Scene – The State of Colorado in election season

Enter – The Villain (Local Politics) seeking to wed our Heroes (Criminal Justice and Immigration) against their will.

 

Here in our backyard, we have become a bit of a hotspot for the immigration debate.  Not only has local Congressman Dan Tancredo has made a national reputation on the immigration issue (he’s a “tough” guy), but the “soft” – “tough” immigration debate is developing as a central issue in our current gubernatorial campaign.  The Democratic Candidate Bill Ritter is being challenged for having been “soft” on non-citizen immigrants[1].  Specifically, he has been challenged on having allowed his office and deputies to craft pleas that would not undermine a non-citizen’s immigration status.  The implication is clear from Mr. Ritter’s opponents that a “tougher,” more punitive approach should have been taken against immigrants because of their non-citizen status.

 

Pulling criminal justice together with immigration in an election year and in the middle of a campaign, doesn’t bode well either for non-citizen immigrants (legal or illegal) or our over-burdened criminal justice system.  My fear is that these are the seeds of an ugly vine that will grow in our local political garden.  In the future, is it hard to imagine politicians trying to show just how “tough” they are in an effort to avoid looking “soft” and vulnerable on this issue in future hypothetical campaigns?  I think it’s already begun to happen.

 

So what do “tough on immigration” steps look like?  Just take a page from the War on Drugs Playbook.  Play 1 - focus all energy on prosecuting/punishing the easy-target, end user – in this case the non-citizen him/herself;  Play 2 most importantly, ignore the broader reasons that brought this problem to our door and resist all attempts to do anything but Play 1; Play 3 – Repeat Play 1 and Play 2.  Assuming non-citizens would have fewer options in our criminal justice system, where would they go in our criminal justice system?  - on to the crowded dockets of our public defenders, into our overcrowded jails, and on top of our exploding prison population.

 

I cringe each time that criminal justice is looked upon to “solve” a bigger problem like immigration.  Criminal justice is an attractive tool that few politicians hesitate to use like a club on those with little political voice.  Like nowhere else, the criminal justice system is tough and can impose hard sanctions (like a prison sentence).  The conventional wisdom is that if the sanctions are tough, the conduct will stop.  But this conventional wisdom is naive and, frankly, too often wrong.  Pouring Colorado’s criminal justice resources on a global problem like immigration will have no measurable impact on the immigration problem and do nothing more than overburden our already overburdened system.

 

The United States powers one of the most powerful economic and cultural engines in the world.  This engine draws citizens of other countries to be with family members, to escape unimaginable horrors, and/or to simply partake in our comparative prosperity.  People who come to this country, whether legally or illegally, do so through a harrowing series of decisions and events that unfold over years.  If we want to do something about how and why non-citizens ultimately get to Colorado, threatening and imposing penalties and sanctions at the end of this long harrowing journey through our criminal justice system is the wrong way of doing it.

 

If you’ve read this far, here’s the message of my letter: be careful of those that seek to marry immigration to criminal justice; don’t tolerate this marriage from your elected politicians; and in every case you touch, resist mightily those who would seek to use the Colorado criminal justice system as way to address the challenges of immigration.

Immigration and Criminal Justice – A Marriage of Issues That Will Ensure Injustice