CASTLE ROCK, Colo. - Neighbors are struggling to come to grips with
the gruesome discovery of a woman's mangled body that had been dragged
along a paved road.. Investigators said they found a trail of blood
more than a mile long behind the body. The victim's face was
unrecognizable and an orange tow rope was found around her neck...
http://cbs4denver.com/local/local_story_264180409.html
Sep 21, 2006
Dragging Death Enters Immigration Policy Debate
Terry Jessup
(CBS4) WASHINGTON The dragging death of a woman in Douglas County
became part of the national debate on immigration reform.
Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colorado, cited the arrest of suspect Jose Luis
Nava-Rubi as a reason to increase border security on the House floor
Thursday.
Nava-Rubi is being held without bond on a first degree murder charge
and an immigration hold because officials believe he is in the nation
illegally.
Tancredo, in whose district the grisly murder occurred, is a strong
proponent of much stricter laws for immigration.
In a House debate on a proposal to make it easier to detain and deport
illegal immigrants, Tancredo said Rubi-Nava should've been out of the
country in April after he was pulled over by Denver police.
"He was driving without a license, he was driving with a forged
identifier," Tancredo said. "Something that was observable to the
policeman. He was taken in and let go, no contact was made with ICE
whatsoever.
Tancredo repeated his claim that Denver is a so-called "sanctuary
city" for illegal immigrants.
"If the local police had been able to do their job expect for their
sanctuary city provisions that stopped them, he would have been off
the streets in April and not been able to commit this horrible crime,"
Tancredo said.
Denver's mayor John Hickenlooper refuted the Congressman's charges.
"Denver has been a sanctuary city, however many times he calls Denver
a sanctuary city, it's not," Hickenlooper told CBS4.
The mayor said police are not told to go easy on illegal immigrants to
help the economy.
"We do not arrest people because they don't have their driver's
licenses and put them in jail and turn them over to ICE," Hickenlooper
said. "We'd need a jail five times bigger than the one we're building
now if we were going to consider that."
Hickenlooper did say if there was a mistake made in handling the stop
involving Rubi-Nava in April, it had to do with the system.
"The bottom line is the way should work, that individual back in April
should have been arrested and that magistrate should have referred him
to ICE," Hickenlooper said.
Tancredo said he was particularly interested in the State and Local
Enforcement Cooperate Act which deals with the identification and
transfer of illegal immigrations who have been arrested.
Tancredo said if the laws worked correctly, horrible crimes like the
dragging death wouldn't happen.
"We need to engage the local communities in this effort to help us and
the federal government must take on a responsibility here to secure
our borders," Tancredo said. "It is our true and one single
responsibility."
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