Colorado Considers Immigration Enforcement

A legislative panel took the first steps Tuesday toward launching an examination into how an illegal immigrant who caused a traffic accident that killed three people was allowed to remain in the country despite his extensive criminal record.

What Lawmakers in Colorado and the news media are not talking about is the fact that Colorado for at least three decades has had an unofficial sanctuary policy on illegal immigration.

The Legislative Audit Committee voted to authorize State Auditor Sally Symanski to do preliminary research on conducting such an audit. Symanski expected that the inquiry would look at how state and local law-enforcement agencies and the judicial system interacted in the case of Francis Hernandez, 23, an illegal immigrant who had been arrested over a dozen times in the past five years and served jail time but was never deported.

Hernandez drove a vehicle that earlier this month in Aurora struck a pickup truck, killing two women, as well as a 3-year-old boy who was in a nearby ice cream shop.

State law requires police to tell federal authorities when they have detained a suspect believed to be an illegal immigrant.

Aurora police reported Hernandez to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in April, but ICE never came to pick him up, and he was released from jail. MORE

Inv. Sara Kilgore
Brian Blackwell QI Services Denver [BrianBlackwell.com]