SPEECH
Immigration Foe Richard Lamm Sounds off from the Left
By David Frey, 4-12-06
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Former Colorado Gov. Richard Lamm is a rarity in the immigration debate. He’s a staunch Democrat who is also a staunch opponent of immigration. Not just illegal immigration. Pretty much any immigration. Lamm’s message: cut out the illegal immigration, clamp down on the legal immigration or the nation’s population will soar out of control.
Lamm has been talking this tough talk for years. He even campaigned unsuccessfully for the top seat at the Sierra Club two years ago on a similar anti-immigration-population-crunch platform. On Tuesday, he took the message to Grand Junction’s Mesa State College, as the immigration debate reaches a fever pitch across the country.
Lamm is used to the fever pitch, though, and Grand Junction is used to immigrants. They have a long history here, first coming to work the orchards and fields and more recently to fill service jobs.
The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel reported on Lamm’s appearance, in which he warned students and community members that the risks posed by illegal immigration, swelling demographics and global warming put the country’s future at risk. Dry regions like the high desert of Grand Junction could see their water supplies dry up, he said.
“Can civilization like we know it exist?” Lamm asked during the first of two speeches. “It sounds maybe hysterical to some of you, but it’s an issue you’re going to have to face.”
He also warned of a growing language gap and culture gap between recent immigrants and the rest of the country.
“I believe we should start taking into account the skills of our immigrants,” said Lamm, who served as governor from 1975 to 1987 and is a director at the Institute for Public Policy Studies at the University of Denver. “That way, he said, they could contribute to the economic viability of the United States, rather than drain from it.”
Lamm is an unusual voice in the debate. He’s a liberal voice who has joined the staunchest of social conservatives in seeking to draw the line on immigration. And he confounds liberals, who happily chime in with him on the population bomb but glance at their watches when he starts sounding off on immigration.
No word yet on what countries the janitorial staffers who cleaned up after Lamm’s speech came from.
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Comments
Writing from overpopulated California, originally from Carbondale, CO.
Sigh. Yet another "writer" who needs to divide every issue into the tired "blue vs. red" buckets. Perhaps if you get out of your 11th grade high school English-class mode where your type of analysis got you that "B" grade, you can dig maybe just a little deeper and perhaps discover that *gasp* this is not a left/right issue. That's way people like you are so confounded about Governor Lamm's position. How can it be that there are sandal-wearing people among us that actually think that illegal immigration is a big problem? And is it *just* remotely possible, in your world, that the janitor was not a recent immigrant? No? I guess I figured that.
Here's a lead for your next story. Find out why there is zero outrage or action within the Sierra Club about the sad trashing and littering of our desert National Forests on our border, and its effect on the wildlife, caused by illegal immigration and drug traffic over the border. That includes meth lab waste and human feces. This time, try for the "A" grade by abandoning the party divisions in your reporting. Oh, and extra credit for eliminating the Sally Forth, cutesy punchlines in your report.
Good luck!