Regional
(2009-12-18)
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DENVER, CO
(KUNC) -
Colorado immigrant groups are hopeful that 2010 will bring meaningful immigration reform. Activists are planning a series of vigils in mountain resort towns tonight to correspond with the introduction of an immigration reform bill in Congress this week.
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They're hoping to spread the stories of small business owners such as Javier Gasbar.
Gasbar owns a cleaning company in Silverthorne called Perfect Service. Business has been good in its short, four year run. And despite the recession he's been able to expand across Summit, Eagle and Grand counties.
There's just one problem.
"It's only immigrants who apply for these jobs," he says.
Gasbar thinks the government should be making it easier, not harder, for him to hire them.
"It is a real hassle," he says, "especially up in the mountains, it is a real hassle to keep your labor force, the turnaround rate is just completely incredible. Most any employer could tell you that."
But Gasbar sees hope in an immigration reform package introduced in the US House by Illinois democrat Luis Gutierrez. Four Colorado democrats have signed on as co-sponsors; the hook for ten vigils planned across the state tonight from Dillon to Avon to Telluride.
Organizer Chandra Russo of the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition says activists are turning their attention to high-profile ski resort towns because, "We see immigrants as sort of the backbone to what is a backbone of our state economy."
"The ski industry is a three billion dollar industry, second largest sector in the state," Russo says.
She says it's time for immigrants to, in her words, come out of the shadows.
"You look around, if you're in a ski town and you're staying in a lodge, or watching who's cleaning up the buildings," Russo says, "you see that the face of the workforce is certainly an immigrant workforce."
But some of that workforce is here illegally, the primary sticking point for opponents of the bill. They say the measure will lead to amnesty for people, and businesses, who knowingly break the law. © Copyright 2012, KUNC
