CAIR - Colorado Alliance for Immigration Reform

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On the border - FORT COLLINS — The kid gloves stayed on Monday night in Harmony Library’s Community Room

By Kate Forgach, Fort Collins Rocky Mountain Bullhorn, August 25, 2005

http://www.rockymountainbullhorn.com/main.php?module=article-detail&articleId=65

FORT COLLINS—The kid gloves stayed on Monday night in Harmony Library’s Community Room.

The hot topic was illegal immigration—particularly across the Mexican-American border—and eight protestors holding signs outside the library signaled potential controversy ahead. But the crowd of an estimated 60 citizens representing all sides of the argument managed to maintain cordial relations throughout the evening, despite their polarized viewpoints.

Fort Collins resident Glen Colton moderated the evening’s event, which was organized by himself, five other local activists and the Lakewood-based Colorado Alliance for Immigration Reform (CAIR). CAIR Director Fred Elbel also spoke at the August 22 meeting....

CAIR members organized the meeting, “because it’s time to start talking about immigration, as a community and as a nation. The purpose of the meeting was to get people out, educate them and let them hear this side of the argument. We don’t believe that our side of the argument has been heard,” Colton says, adding that a primary goal is to see immigration slowed to about 200,000 entries per year. Current estimates put the number of Mexican immigrants into the United States at about 800,000 to 1 million each year.

“[Two hundred thousand entries is] a traditional, pre-1970 level. We believe that protecting the environment and the United States’ quality of life and other things we value requires a stable population. We can only do that at this rate of immigration,” he says.

Closer to home, the Human Rights Protection Ordinance came under fire at the meeting. Scheduled for presentation to city council on September 6, the ordinance would prevent city employees and police from asking an individual’s immigration status under most circumstances....

CAIR’s Elbel hopes the Fort Collins contingent will join forces with other immigration-control forces to place an initiative on the November 2006 ballot that would alter Colorado’s constitution in order to bar state and county services for undocumented immigrants [illegal aliens].