We have a crisis at our southern border. Detention facilities are operating at over 100% capacity, and the pictures taken by Republican senators who visited reveal abysmal conditions. Last week, children were filmed being thrown over a 10-foot wall.

Also read: COUNTERPOINT | Shielding immigrants makes sense

Now, overwhelmed with the surge, the Biden administration is releasing many of those illegally crossing the border into the interior of the country. Instead of addressing the crisis, Democrat Sen. Julie Gonzales thinks Colorado should further cripple the ability of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to identify lawbreakers. Her bill, “Concerning Measures to Protect Personal Identifying Information Kept by State Agencies,” prohibits state agency employees from sharing personal information, most importantly immigration status, with federal agencies like ICE.

The bill is being sold as a privacy issue, but that’s misleading. Law already prohibits state agencies from sharing the personal information described in Senate Bill 131. All the bill does is extend the existing laws to state employees themselves, even though no evidence suggests there’s a significant problem with state employees providing this information on their own accord.

Worsening this ineffective bill is the price tag. The bill originally cost $95 million. It has since been amended and that astronomical cost will come down somewhat, but it certainly won’t be free; and considering that it addresses a problem that doesn’t exist, any price is too high. Whatever the bill costs, it will be paid by Colorado taxpayers in the midst of an economic recovery that has destroyed jobs and businesses.

Ironically, while supporting the privacy rights of illegal immigrants, Colorado Senate Democrats are simultaneously refusing to do the same for law-abiding Coloradans. Sen. Jerry Sonnenberg’s Senate Bill 159, “Prohibit Electronic Transfer Of Records,” designed to protect the privacy rights of Colorado citizens, was killed in committee. Colorado Senate Democrats have shown where their priorities lie, and it is not with citizens.

For Gonzales, substance isn’t the goal. The goal is to send a message that, if you break the law coming to this country, Colorado will support you. Gonzales is sponsoring multiple bills to protect illegal immigrants, including one that would give illegal immigrants public housing benefits.

Policies like SB 131 create situations like the one at the border. When we tell people we will overlook their lawbreaking, give them free housing, and protect their privacy under the penalty of law, of course they will come in mass numbers. Now, thanks to the foolish Biden administration policies that Colorado Senate Democrats want to mimic, we are in a crisis that gives no sign of ending anytime soon.

The more barriers we put up for ICE, the more dangerous for Coloradans. These attempts to protect illegal immigrants deter ICE’s important work fighting human trafficking and ensuring we know who is in our country.

As a sovereign country, we ought to know exactly whom we are letting in. There is no inalienable right to live in America, yet some politicians want to give illegal immigrants a shield to protect them from federal agencies. 

The price of this political self-promotion and pandering is more than just wasted money. Bills like this put Coloradans in danger. At a time when the borders are under a strain almost unprecedented in American history, Democrats should be looking for ways to support and reinforce our immigration system, not undermine the rule of law.

Coloradans would be better served if Democrats in the General Assembly put their backs into helping citizens recover from the crisis that has rocked our state for the last 13 months.

John Cooke, a Weld County Republican, represents District 13 in the Colorado Senate, where he serves as assistant minority leader.