Colorado Politics

Bennet among Democrats challenging Trump immigration rule with futile bill

Michael Bennet, Colorado’s U.S. senator and an aspiring presidential nominee, is on a list of more than two dozen Democrats in the Senate out to trip up the Trump administration’s plan to force legal immigrants to risk a chance at temporary or permanent residency if they use food stamps, housing support or other safety net programs.

Trump’s “public charge” rule on immigration is set to go into effect Oct. 15.

Bennet is one of 26 Democrats signed onto the the symbolic Protect American Values Act, which has no chance of becoming law as long as Republicans control the upper chamber and Trump occupies the White House. The bill would block federal dollars from being used by the Department of Homeland Security to enforce the public charge rule.

“Since coming to office, President Trump has waged an all-out assault on America’s immigrant tradition,” Bennet said in a statement released by his Senate office. “The administration has made a policy of cruelty. This move is the latest example, stoking fear in immigrant communities and forcing people to make an impossible choice between the health and well-being of their families and their future immigration status. This bill sends a clear message that we will not stand for yet another blatant attack on our immigrant communities.”

Other current or former presidential candidates are among the 26 Democratic senators backing the bill: Sens. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Kamala Harris of California, Cory Booker of New Jersey, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, as well as Tim Kaine of Virginia, who was Hillary Clinton’s running mate in 2016.

Colorado is one of 16 states suing the Trump administration over the rule, rolled out in August.

The lawsuit is available by clicking here.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., gestures while speaking at the Democratic National Committee’s summer meeting Friday, Aug. 23, 2019, in San Francisco.
(Photo by Ben Margot, the Associated Press)
Tags

PREV

PREVIOUS

COVER STORY | Without access to care, anxiety, depression, addiction stalk rural Coloradans

KIOWA COUNTY ? Simply coping can be lonely, and here in southern Colorado, where the brown fields sweep to the blue horizon, struggles come on as slow as drought or with the sudden intensity of a dust devil. ? There’s desperate isolation in a place where everybody knows everybody else’s business, says Laura Negley, a mother […]

NEXT

NEXT UP

Hickenlooper, Colorado advocates charged up over Trump air quality move

Two of Colorado’s best-known advocates for vehicle emissions standards – one a former governor, the other the state’s largest environmental organization – were among the first to react when the Trump administration moved to block states from exceeding federal rules. When President Trump pulled the nation out of the international Paris Climate Accord coalition in 2017, then-Colorado […]


Welcome Back.

Streak: 9 days i

Stories you've missed since your last login:

Stories you've saved for later:

Recommended stories based on your interests:

Edit my interests