Ritter, audit committee chair issues calls for immigration investigation

The chairman of the state legislature’s audit committee said today he supports a call to investigate the systematic failures that allowed a suspected illegal immigrant who has been arrested at least 16 times to remain in the country.

Meanwhile, Gov. Bill Ritter today told the head of the Colorado Department of Public Safety to form a task force and undertake a similar review.

“It is outrageous to think that a person with this kind of criminal history can avoid our laws and simply roam free in Colorado,” audit committee chairman Rep. Jim Kerr, R-Littleton, said in a statement.

The investigations and the outrage stem from the case of Francis Hernandez, a 23-year-old Guatemalan and suspected illegal immigrant who, police say, on Sept. 4 crashed his SUV into a pickup in Aurora, sending the pickup smashing into an ice cream shop. The crash killed two women in the pickup and a 3-year-old boy in the ice cream shop. Hernandez has been charged with vehicular homicide.

Earlier this week, three Democratic state lawmakers asked the legislature’s audit committee to conduct an investigation into whether gaps in existing laws or their enforcement allowed Hernandez to slip through the cracks. Kerr said the audit committee will discuss the possible investigation at a meeting later this month.

Ritter today told Public Safety Director Peter Weir to convene a task force to look at what problems are preventing local, state and federal authorities from better sharing information about suspected illegal immigrants and what laws need to be fixed to alleviate those problems.

“State and local law enforcement officers continue to experience frustrations due to a lack of federal resources and a clear federal response,” Ritter wrote to Weir. “However, these federal challenges should not prevent state and local agencies from seeking solutions.”

Ritter set a Dec. 31 deadline for the task force to issue a report.

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