Widgetized Section

Go to Admin » Appearance » Widgets » and move Gabfire Widget: Social into that MastheadOverlay zone

Trump zero tolerance, family separation policies stir heated response in Eagle County

By
June 25, 2018, 9:23 am
Donald Trump

President Donald Trump

At its closest point, Vail is more than 650 miles from the Mexican border, but ripple effects from the chaos over family separations and the Trump administration’s zero-tolerance immigration policy were felt all the way in Eagle County last week.

Policymakers, immigration experts and candidates for Congress reacted with dismay at the hardline policies being enforced by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the Department of Homeland Security – policies that have led to scenes of very young children separated from their parents at the border and placed into detention facilities around the country.

State Rep. Dylan Roberts, D-Eagle

State Rep. Dylan Roberts, D-Eagle

“This is just another example of the Trump administration being all over the place when it comes to immigration law,” said state Rep. Dylan Roberts of Eagle, who is also a local deputy district attorney. “There is no clear policy for enforcement and that is leaving families here in Eagle County in constant fear and continues to deter people from reporting crime in our community.

“Further, it is putting local law enforcement in the position of potentially working with ICE [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement], which in my legal and political opinion, is against the law.”

Roberts, who represents Eagle and Routt counties in the state legislature and is running for the seat again in November, acknowledges the heated debate is one that needs to be resolved at the federal level, but he said the ongoing uncertainty is having a huge impact in his district.

“We have not heard of any of our clients that have been impacted by separation of children and parents,” said Marian McDonough, regional director for Catholic Charities, Western Slope. “That’s not to say they aren’t out there, just that we have not heard directly.”

Karl Hanlon

Karl Hanlon

While the new policies may not be directly impacting immigrant families in Eagle County, many of whom have been living and working in the community for years, the administration’s tougher stance on enforcement and issues like Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) have created a general sense of anxiety.

“Immigrants up here are very concerned about the future of DACA and the enforcement priorities for Homeland Security [DHS],” McDonough said. “On the Western Slope, those issues have the potential to separate families and create a financial crisis. However, we don’t want to create anxiety when at this time nothing has directly changed.”

Roberts says that’s exactly why the U.S. Congress needs to deal with these issues immediately.

Endless battle in Congress

“All of this just further illustrates Congress’s inability to do anything constructive,” Roberts said. “I hope [U.S.] Rep. Scott Tipton and his [Republican] party, which controls Congress, would work with Democrats and the president and pass comprehensive immigration reform — that would have major positive impacts for our community.”

On Thursday, Tipton, who represents most of the state’s Western Slope, including the western two-thirds of Eagle County, voted in favor of a hardline immigration bill that was rejected by all three Democratic Colorado House members, including U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, who represents the eastern third of Eagle County. Republican Mike Coffman, who represents a diverse Front Range district and is facing a tough re-election battle in November, voted against the hardline bill.

Diane Mitsch Bush

Diane Mitsch Bush

In fact, Coffman went so far as to call the new Trump administration policies “a terrible mistake” and demanded the firing of top Trump immigration advisor Stephen Miller. Coffman has been pushing hard for a DACA solution and indicated he would support a compromise immigration bill that includes a DACA fix, but that vote has been postponed until sometime this week.

Don’t bother, President Donald Trump tweeted Friday morning: “Republicans should stop wasting their time on Immigration until after we elect more Senators and Congressmen/women in November. Dems are just playing games, have no intention of doing anything to solves [sic] this decades old problem. We can pass great legislation after the Red Wave!”

Trump over the weekend continued to take a hardline stance, insisting illegal immigrants should be sent back without any due legal process and tweeting “we cannot allow all of these people to invade our country.”

In a pair of tweets on Wednesday, before Trump temporarily backed off the family separation policy with an executive order, Colorado’s Tipton voiced his disapproval of the policy.

“I believe in border security and support a zero-tolerance policy on illegal immigration, but I do not support separating children from their parents at the border,” Tipton said, adding he joined several colleagues in sending a letter to that effect to DHS, requesting more information. “The Administration should take action to allow families to remain together while the parents’ cases are decided.”

That prompted this statement the same day from Karl Hanlon, a Glenwood Spring municipal and water attorney from Carbondale seeking the Democratic nomination to challenge Tipton in November:

“Scott Tipton, after nearly two weeks of watching and doing nothing is finally reversing course on the humanitarian crisis taking place on our southern border,” Hanlon said, referring to Tipton’s previous stance in a June 6 Pueblo Chieftain story. “Unfortunately, in true Tipton fashion, he’s barely able to do the right thing.

“Congressman, we don’t need your disapproval or more information. This is one of the moral issues of our time and you’ve failed yet again. In Washington, I’ll stand up to Donald Trump and fight for change because that’s what Colorado deserves.”

On Thursday, former state Rep. Diane Mitsch Bush, who is also seeking the Democratic nomination to challenge Tipton, put out a press release blasting the congressman form Cortez.

“Both Trump’s executive order and Tipton’s letter to DHS are publicity stunts,” Mitsch Bush said. “Neither will fix this appalling situation. We need real action and I implore both Tipton and all representatives around the country to support S3036 (pdf) – Keep Families Together Act — a bill that actually makes this barbaric practice illegal.”

Both Tipton’s campaign spokesman and his congressional office spokeswoman did not return emails requesting further comment.

 

 

 

 

 

The following two tabs change content below.

David O. Williams

Managing Editor at RealVail
David O. Williams is the editor and co-founder of RealVail.com and has had his awarding-winning work (see About Us) published in more than 75 newspapers and magazines around the world, including 5280 Magazine, American Way Magazine (American Airlines), the Anchorage Daily News (Alaska), the Anchorage Daily Press (Alaska), Aspen Daily News, Aspen Journalism, the Aspen Times, Beaver Creek Magazine, the Boulder Daily Camera, the Casper Star Tribune (Wyoming), the Chicago Tribune, Colorado Central Magazine, the Colorado Independent (formerly Colorado Confidential), Colorado Newsline, Colorado Politics (formerly the Colorado Statesman), Colorado Public News, the Colorado Springs Gazette, the Colorado Springs Independent, the Colorado Statesman (now Colorado Politics), the Colorado Times Recorder, the Cortez Journal, the Craig Daily Press, the Curry Coastal Pilot (Oregon), the Daily Trail (Vail), the Del Norte Triplicate (California), the Denver Daily News, the Denver Gazette, the Denver Post, the Durango Herald, the Eagle Valley Enterprise, the Eastside Journal (Bellevue, Washington), ESPN.com, Explore Big Sky (Mont.), the Fort Morgan Times (Colorado), the Glenwood Springs Post-Independent, the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, the Greeley Tribune, the Huffington Post, the King County Journal (Seattle, Washington), the Kingman Daily Miner (Arizona), KUNC.org (northern Colorado), LA Weekly, the Las Vegas Sun, the Leadville Herald-Democrat, the London Daily Mirror, the Moab Times Independent (Utah), the Montgomery Journal (Maryland), the Montrose Daily Press, The New York Times, the Parent’s Handbook, Peaks Magazine (now Epic Life), People Magazine, Powder Magazine, the Pueblo Chieftain, PT Magazine, the Rio Blanco Herald Times (Colorado), Rocky Mountain Golf Magazine, the Rocky Mountain News, RouteFifty.com (formerly Government Executive State and Local), the Salt Lake Tribune, SKI Magazine, Ski Area Management, SKIING Magazine, the Sky-Hi News, the Steamboat Pilot & Today, the Sterling Journal Advocate (Colorado), the Summit Daily News, United Hemispheres (United Airlines), Vail/Beaver Creek Magazine, Vail en Español, Vail Health Magazine, Vail Valley Magazine, the Vail Daily, the Vail Trail, Westword (Denver), Writers on the Range and the Wyoming Tribune Eagle. Williams is also the founder, publisher and editor of RealVail.com and RockyMountainPost.com.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *