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CAIR News Release - March 10, 2005 Please deliver to the NEWS Editor / Director (one-page fax) ------------------------------- C A I R ----------------------------- Colorado Alliance for Immigration Reform --------------------------------------------------------------------- NEWS RELEASE ______________________________________________________ FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contacts: Mike McGarry Telephone/Fax 888 694-1559 Website: www.cairco.org Email: coloradoalliance@comcast.net Glenwood Springs Police Chief Terry Wilson Telephone: (970) 384-6500 Immigration Group blasts Glenwood Springs police chief over Mexican ID Says “rogue cop” should be investigated March 10, 2005 (Aspen CO)-- A spokesman for a Colorado immigration reform group has blasted the Glenwood Springs police chief for providing that city's community center as a venue on March 12 for the Consulate General of Mexico to issue its Consular ID card to Mexican nationals living in the region. In a three-page letter* to chief Terry Wilson, dated March 9, Aspen resident Mike McGarry, Western Slope coordinator for the Colorado Alliance for Immigration Reform (CAIR), called Wilson’s actions “reckless, arbitrary and outrageous.” The letter says CAIR will ask the governor, the state attorney general and state legislators to investigate Wilson. The letter cites the Colorado Secure and Verifiable Identity Document Act, passed by the Colorado legislature in 2003, which bans state agencies and those of its political subdivisions from accepting the ID card, known as the matricula consular card, as valid ID in most circumstances. “This rogue cop has taken it upon himself to flout the legislative intent of that law,” McGarry said. The letter charges Wilson with diverting public funds to pay the fees for Mexican Consulate General’s use of the center’s facilities. McGarry said only illegal aliens have a need for the ID card, because, he says, Mexican nationals legally residing in the state all possess U.S. government-issued documents, such as visas and permanent resident alien cards, known as green cards. “It is unimaginable that chief Wilson would provide his city’s facilities at taxpayers’ expense to the [Mexican] government to sell its outlawed ID card, a card the FBI and the Justice Department have said is risky, unreliable and poses major criminal threats.” In January, 2003, CAIR sponsored a debate in Denver, “The Mexican matricula consular ID card: Safe of Sorry?” McGarry credits that debate with positively influencing the subsequent state legislation that banned the card’s use throughout the state. ### *Letter available upon request The Lakewood-based Colorado Alliance for Immigration Reform (CAIR) is a Colorado non-profit corporation advocating for immigration reduction. Home |