Border war: the jury is still out on how Tom Tancredo's immigration crusade will impact Colorado.

• Author: Peterson, Eric
• Position: Border patrol

In April, Colorado congressman Tom Tancredo was in Arizona to cheer the launch of the volunteer border-watchers known as the Minutemen. [paragraph] In May, he roundly criticized Denver police and Mayor John Hickenlooper after an undocumented Mexican teenager who washed dishes at one of Hickenlooper's restaurants allegedly murdered a Denver policeman, shooting him in the back. [paragraph] By June, as a result of that criticism, city officials were negotiating with the regional office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement about how to alert the federal government that suspected undocumented aliens were being held in Denver jail cells.

In spite of this victory, Tancredo's opponents--including a number of top economists--decry his rhetoric as both xenophobic and sensationalist. If he were around today, Adam Smith, the father of modern free-market economics, might conclude the "invisible hand" he described centuries ago is responsible for guiding millions of workers to illegally cross borders worldwide in search of higher wages, fueling economic growth in the process. But Tom Tancredo would tell Smith he's off his historical rocker.

In Tancredo's opinion, the national and Colorado economies, as well as the public interest generally in the United States, have taken a serious beating because of illegal immigration. That opinion, too, runs counter to some labor experts' conclusions, but Tancredo is not one to bend or broaden his argument to avoid confrontation.

"The economic history of the United States does not necessarily lead you to the conclusion that the only time you have high economic growth is when you have high immigration rates," says Tancredo. "In fact, in some cases it has been just the opposite."

Tancredo says skeptics need look no further than the most recent recession for a time when immigration, especially the undocumented variety, was high but the economy dragged. "The kind of immigration that would have a positive impact would most likely be the kind that is made up of high-income, high-skilled people," says Tancredo. "Huge numbers of low-skilled, low-wage people--which is what we have--tend to take more away from the economy than they contribute."

That, too, is a conclusion that has been argued a variety of ways with varying statistics, to no real end.

But Tancredo, a conservative Republican representing a mostly Anglo population in economically booming south Jefferson, Arapahoe, Douglas and Elbert counties, uses only the arguments that favor his cause. And since his election as the U.S. representative of the Sixth Congressional District in 1998, he has loudly and brashly made the fight against illegal immigration his signature issue--even to the point of bucking President George W. Bush and the president's top political adviser, Karl Rove. Tancredo has attacked both for proposing guest-worker status to current illegal aliens. The Colorado congressman has argued that process would amount to amnesty for workers who have already broken the law merely by being here illegally.

Critics of Tancredo argue that his talking points don't reflect reality.

The U.S. Department of Labor has projected a worker shortage in the U.S. by 2008, thanks to 20 million new jobs but only 17 million new workers projected to fill them. The Urban Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based research organization, estimates Colorado's undocumented immigrant population at 200,000, but if statistics Tancredo favors are correct--Wall Street investment firm Bear Stearns estimates there are as many as 20 million undocumented immigrant adults and children in the U.S., nearly twice the Pew Hispanic Center's best guess of 11 million--then there could be many more illegal Coloradans actually working here.

The North American Free Trade Agreement, says Estevan Flores, executive director of the Latino/Latina Research & Policy Center at the University of Colorado at Denver, "should have made some provision for labor." Flores argues that immigration was a...