Denver Mired in Migration Issue

A few hours after allegedly shooting and killing a police officer, Raul Garcia-Gomez checked into his job in the kitchen of the mayor’s restaurant.

The 20-year-old illegal immigrant had been washing dishes at the Cherry Cricket, the eatery co-owned by Denver Mayor John W. Hickenlooper, for about 10 months. The most attention Garcia-Gomez, a well-regarded worker, had drawn was a letter from the federal government warning that the Social Security number he had provided was invalid.

Restrained by federal law, the restaurant could take no action. But as Garcia-Gomez finished his shift May 8, he was on the verge of notoriety.

Earlier that morning, Garcia-Gomez had an altercation with two off-duty detectives who were working security at a party in Denver. He allegedly shot both, killing one and critically wounding the other. After putting in an eight-hour day washing dishes at the Cherry Cricket, Garcia-Gomez fled to Mexico, where he was arrested almost a month later.

He remains in a Mexican jail awaiting extradition to the U.S., but Garcia-Gomez still looms over Denver as the personification of the thorny issues of illegal immigration that have bedeviled the Mile High City and the entire region.

As the Southwest copes with an influx of illegal immigrants from Mexico, the effect of the migration has reached far beyond the border. Denver has seen the number of Latinos rise from 25% of the population in 1990 to 35% today, part of a demographic transformation that has made whites a minority here. Though most of Colorado’s Latinos were born in the United States, many longtime Denver residents gripe about new arrivals from Mexico.

“It’s become a very polarizing issue,” Denver pollster Floyd Ciruli said of immigration. “We’re not that different now from New Mexico or Arizona.”

The killing of Det. Donald Young was only the first of a series of incidents that has kept immigration on the front burner here this summer. In late June, an illegal immigrant who was hunting in the mountains fatally shot, apparently by accident, a Denver telecommunications executive, then fled to Mexico.

Days later, Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) accused the Denver library system of plotting to open Spanish-language-only branches. The city denied the charge, and Tancredo has backed off the allegation, but he has spent the summer campaigning across the country for a tougher approach to immigration.

Despite the angst over immigration and Young’s death, few Denver residents blame Hickenlooper, a gangly 52-year-old political novice who made his fortune revitalizing this fun-loving city’s downtown.

“With the mayor, people recognize that illegal immigrants are so ubiquitous in our society that it could happen to anybody,” said Richard Lamm, a Democrat and former Colorado governor who now campaigns against illegal immigration. “You hire a lawn crew, someone to come in and redo your basement, who knows what you’ll get.”

When he ran for office in 2003, Hickenlooper did not spend much time talking about immigration. His insurgent campaign’s main political ad was a spot in which the would-be mayor dropped coins in meters and pledged to cut the costs of parking in downtown Denver.

As the co-owner of eight popular Denver restaurants, Hickenlooper was accustomed to having immigrants on his payroll, but he says he gave the issue of their residency status little thought.

“I honestly presumed they were all legal,” he said in an interview.

Already devastated from having to deal with Young’s death, Hickenlooper had to digest the news that the suspect in the shooting was his illegal employee. “The fact that this guy worked for 10 months at one of our best restaurants made the issue more vivid for me,” he said.

During his trips to Washington, Hickenlooper has met with staff on the key House and Senate committees that deal with immigration to learn more about the issue and offer to lobby for a solution. He backs a proposal to fine illegal immigrants currently in the country, allow them to continue working, and use the revenue from the fines to seal the border.

The mayor says the current situation is untenable. “You have a large segment of society living outside the law,” Hickenlooper said -- not just the illegal immigrants, but entire industries that depend on their labor.

Not everyone agrees with Hickenlooper’s stance on immigration. The mayor mentioned Young during his state of the city speech in July but did not bring up immigration. But after Hickenlooper left the podium, one man in the crowd shouted: “What about sanctuary?”

The heckler, who did not identify himself, was part of about a dozen demonstrators lingering at the rear of the city park where the mayor was speaking. The question referred to the fact that Denver police, like their counterparts in Los Angeles and most major cities, are discouraged from asking a suspect’s immigration status -- a policy that critics have labeled “sanctuary.” The Denver police had cited Garcia-Gomez three times for traffic violations before Young was slain, but had never asked whether he was in the country legally.

The Hickenlooper administration says it would be impractical to change this policy because the Police Department is overworked dealing with violations of state law and because immigration is a federal issue. That did not sway the demonstrators.

People are angry, said Mike McGarry, director of the Colorado Alliance for Immigration Reform. “We have a policy of sanctuary and people are dying from it.”

That wasn’t the only complaint of demonstrators. “I get beer bottles thrown in my yard, graffiti, dirty diapers,” complained one man who refused to give his name and stalked away from reporters.

The shouting during the ceremony was a troubling sign of some of the turmoil. “This is Denver,” said Councilman Charlie Brown. “Things like that just don’t happen here.”

That’s similar to what many residents felt about Young’s slaying.

A gregarious and high-energy motorcycle enthusiast who talked several Denver police into joining him on epic rides, Young was the sort of person who could walk into a police station or a biker bar and be greeted as a bosom buddy, friends recalled. He spent many years south of Denver as a sheriff’s deputy in El Paso County but dreamed of making it to the Mile High City’s force, the highest-profile police department in the Rockies.

He made it to Denver in 1993 and worked a wide variety of posts, including narcotics and undercover. He also took on an increasing amount of after-hours work to try to provide for his wife, Kelly, and his three children.

It was such a job that took him and Det. John Bishop to Salon Ocampo, a banquet hall in southwest Denver, the night of May 7.

The baptismal party was in honor of the newborn cousin of Garcia-Gomez’s girlfriend. Shortly after midnight, Garcia-Gomez, who had been tossed out of the party, allegedly opened fire on the security guards. Young was killed, but Bishop survived because he wore a bulletproof vest.

Garcia-Gomez did not have a legal driver’s license, and police had no official record of his address. Garcia-Gomez stayed ahead of the manhunt and slipped into Mexico only a few days after the shooting, authorities have said. Working with the Denver police and U.S. marshals, Mexican federal authorities arrested Garcia-Gomez on June 4 in the city of Culiacan.