DA plans meeting to discuss illegal immigrant crime; some fear it will further divide community

Weld District Attorney Ken Buck said his meeting to highlight crimes by illegal immigrants this week will prove to the community why an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office is needed in Greeley, but others say he's just fanning the flames of hatred in the community.

Law enforcement officials and crime victims will speak at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at Island Grove Regional Park's 4H Building Park, 501 N. 14th Ave., Greeley. Buck said he wants to show the personal side of a complex story, but community groups and members say the event hyperbolizes crime among illegal immigrants.

"I'm not against them having their view. I'm just against them distorting information to create this hysteria and hatred in our community," said Ricardo Romero of Greeley.

Latinos Unidos and the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition issued a statement Saturday calling the forum a biased attempt to link immigrants with crime in Weld County.

"While we sympathize and acknowledge the suffering of victims of crime, we must as a society take special care not to blame an entire community for the acts of a few. ... The stereotype that immigrants are more likely to engage in criminal activity is categorically false," the release says.

Buck said he isn't trying to imply that all illegal immigrants commit crimes. "A vast majority of illegal immigrants are not committing crimes other than being in this country illegally. This meeting is inform the county on how we can do a better job with the people who commit crimes," he said.

Former district attorney Al Dominguez said he never saw crimes by illegal immigrants as a pervasive problem in the county when he held the office. Although firm statistics aren't available, Dominguez said he suspects that the same percentage of legal and illegal people commit crimes.

"It's a problem for those families (who are victims) but it's not a community or countywide problem," he said.

The community groups that issued their statement Saturday also called on Buck to become involved in what they call positive community projects, such as Realizing Our Community, which aims to bridge the community's cultural gap.

Buck said he did attend the first meeting of the effort, but didn't feel the group had diverse opinions. "I don't think you can represent the community and fairly develop a solution to an issue unless you have diversity of opinion," he said.

Buck also questioned some of the group's suggested solutions to promoting diversity, a goal he sees as worthwhile. He specifically referenced a recent proposal to have a leader of the European-American community issue an apology for "decades of silence, distance and oppression" to a Hispanic-American leader.

"I don't think it's productive and I don't think it helps them make their goal," he said. "I think they would offend a vast majority of the population of Weld County."

With Buck's forum scheduled on the same evening as an educational forum for Realizing Our Community, co-chair Juvenal Cervantes said the move could be to counteract that group's efforts. But Buck insisted that his assistant simply coordinated the event on a convenient night when the building was available.

To go:

"Illegal Immigration: The Untold Stories" is from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Tuesday at Island Grove Regional Park 4H Building, 501 N. 14th Ave., Greeley. Speakers include Weld District Attorney Ken Buck, Weld County Sheriff John Cooke, Assistant U.S. Attorney Cliff Stricklin, Greeley Police Department Gang Unit Det. Mike Prill and victims of crimes committed by illegal immigrants.

Realizing Our Communties' educational event, "The Way to Greatness," is from 7-8:30 p.m. Tuesday, at Union Colony Civic Center, 701 10th Ave., Greeley. Keynote speakers include Dwight Jones, state education commissioner; Polly Baca, CEO of Latin American Research and Service Agency; Steve Horan, director of Lutheran Family Services Refugee and Asylum programs in Denver, and Rolf Brende, chaplain and author of "The Gentle Heart Primer: Principles That Build Community."