The Republican vice chair of the 7th Congressional District delivered a blistering response Monday night to recent remarks about immigration policy by the GOP candidate running in the district, saying she felt “cheated and used” when she backed him for a Westminster City Council seat and is now calling for him to step down.

During the public comment period at Monday’s city council meeting, Maria del Carmen Guzman Weese, whose family “fled the tyranny of Castro’s Cuba” when she was a child, told Councilman Bruce Baker she was “sad and angry” to read that he wanted to end all immigration into the United States.

Baker is the only Republican running to challenge U.S. Rep. Ed Perlmutter in the 7th CD, which encompasses western Adams County and north-central Jefferson County. The GOP’s congressional district assembly to nominate candidates to the primary ballot is April 7 in Arvada.

“We need to end immigration — all immigration, not just illegal immigration,” Baker told The Colorado Statesman days after launching his campaign last month. “We built this country for ourselves and our posterity, not the world’s posterity.” He went on to compare immigration to slavery.

“Immigration is an institution of slavery,” Baker said. “It’s built on the exploitation of people. Immigration is the exploitation not only of the immigrants coming in but of the natives being displaced from their jobs. That needs to end.”

A visibly shaken Weese, who didn’t mention her position as a GOP officer, was having none of it.

Noting that she’s lived in Westminster for 45 years and decided to stay in the city after graduating high school “because of its beauty and diversity,” she recounted her family’s lengthy trek to America.

“We played by the rules because we knew that America was a place where we could be free, where we would be accepted, no matter where we came from,” she told the city council. “Imagine how I felt when I read Bruce Baker’s comments in The Colorado Statesman,” she said, and then read quotes from Baker.

“This makes me feel sad and angry,” Weese said. “I regret that I voted for him in the last election because I thought he would represent my voice in the community, and, as it turns out, he believes that I should not even have a voice.”

“The foundation of this country was built on immigration and the pursuit of the American Dream,” she continued. “We all have benefited as a society from immigration. America has always been a beacon of hope for the world. It was my hope and my American dream. Now he wants to take that away from our future generations.”

Weese concluded: “I feel cheated and used for my vote. I don’t believe that Bruce Baker reflects the values of Westminster, nor does he respect its citizens. I am asking for his immediate resignation.”

Baker said Tuesday morning that he wasn’t going to resign and was concerned that Weese had misunderstood his proposals.

“Part of me knew it was coming because I said to you previously that this is a very difficult subject,” Baker told The Statesman. “It has tremendous emotion attached to it, which, of course, works very hard when we’re dealing with a truly difficult problem.”

Noting that he’s known Weese for years and has considered her a friend and trusted advisor, Baker said, “It obviously troubled her very much that I wanted to address this issue.” Referring to his quotes about ending immigration, he added, “Somehow she didn’t hear that my concern was more for my fellow Americans — which she’s one of — than for immigrants, for new people coming in.”

“This is about the future, this about the legacy we’re giving to the Americans who follow us,” Baker said. “Nothing I said had to do with denigrating immigrants or anything else like that. Immigrants have been exploited. They are being exploited this very day.”

“One of the reasons I’ve been so open and forthright is I understand the power and emotion of these ideas,” he said, maintaining that he intends to continue campaigning on the message, though he acknowledged he’ll face criticism.

“Because of the impact of my message, at first I expect people to be reluctant, because they don’t want to have to undergo what I was challenged with last night – and that was from my friends. But it’s about the future of this nation. Nothing’s infinite. I would rather we end immigration now at 322 million Americans than give our grandchildren a legacy of a billion Americans.”

Baker suggested that Weese and others who have taken issue with his proposals are suffering from the results of that exploitation and the difficulties immigrants have faced making it to America.

“This, to me, is an example of the exploitation that immigrants have been forced to endure, because these immigrants were so appreciative of having the chance to come to America that they endured all kinds of denigration and insult and demeaning because they know the power of citizenship and giving that gift to their children. It’s my opinion they were more than willing to endure that because of the legacy that gives, and the future that gives, that they would put up with that,” Baker said. “In a sense, instead of it being white guilt, you can almost call it immigrant guilt — they feel unworthy of this wonderful gift they’ve been given.”

The Colorado Republican Party on Tuesday distanced itself from Baker’s proposals.

“The state party certainly does not condone such statements or comparisons,” state GOP executive director Ryan Lynch told The Statesman, adding, “If Councilman Baker chooses to run on that platform, he does so independent from the platform of the Republican Party.”

— ernest@coloradostatesman.com