Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, Julien Ross, AFSC

Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition ("CIRC"; statewide coordinator: Julien Ross) is a five-year old group with 80 other organizations as members.

From this we learn:

The coalition is directed by representatives of 12 groups, including the Colorado Catholic Conference, Service Employees International Union Local 105, and the American Friends Service Committee.

The AFSC has an indirect link to the Mexican government. And, CIRC's site is hosted at AFSC's site. afsc.org/central/ImmigrantRights/CIRC.htm has a list of their demands:

* driver's licenses for all immigrants, regardless of status
* in-state tuition for qualifying immigrants who graduate from state high schools
* statewide acceptance of the matricula consular identification cards issued by the Mexican Consulate as official ID
* defeat of English-Only bills similar to Amendment 31
* defeat of attempts to cut all Medicaid benefits to legal immigrants

The Mexican government - or the crooks who hire illegal aliens - couldn't come up with a better list of demands. Under their scheme, we might as well not have a border at all.

On the 13th, CIRC visited Longmont and was hosted by a member organization, El Comite (director: Marta Moreno; development director: Carolyn Slauson). Details in "Immigration group to plan lobby efforts" by Ben Ready:

...During the meeting, CIRC members also will discuss rapid-response plans to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids...

Immigrant advocates in Longmont and other communities will create contingency plans in case ICE executes more raids, Slauson said. Getting immigration lawyers access to arrestees in detention facilities, raising funds for their families and organizing peace processions would be easier if planned ahead of time, [El Comite development director Carolyn Slauson] noted.

Despite being held at a public facility, one of those on the other side (Stan Weekes of the Colorado Alliance for Immigration Reform) - as well as a photog from that paper - was kept out of the meeting, supposedly due to space concerns. And:

"We don't want to be a coalition that just reacts, but that fights," Ross said in Spanish of CIRC's two-tiered plan to lobby legislators while also planning boycotts, marches and protests for the humane treatment of all immigrants. "We won't just sit with our legs crossed waiting for them to attack us."

"Them... attack us?" Determining whether Ross has "issues" is left to the reader's imagination.

3/24/07 UPDATE: The Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition is supporting a week long boycott designed to show the power of "immigrants". It will end April 1. Participants are to take all but a minimum from their bank accounts, avoid sending money out of the country, avoid spending money, and... "[t]urn off televisions and use minimal electric energy":

CIRC’s Denver office has made dozens of media presentations and circulated 50,000 boycott fliers. Centro Amistad has circulated another 2,000. El Comité director Marta Moreno declined to comment when asked if her organization will participate in the boycott, but El Comité’s office had the flier posted on its front door Friday.

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