Green Party of Colorado Urges President Biden to Issue Mass Pardons Now to Prevent the Worst of Operation Aurora
Denver, CO – The Green Party of Colorado is calling on President Joe Biden to issue mass civil immigration pardons for all qualified non-citizens in the United States. This urgent plea comes in response to President-elect Donald Trump’s plans to initiate mass deportations on his first day in office. He has stated that Colorado’s most diverse city, Aurora, is his first target for mass deportations.
Immigrants make up about 10% of Colorado’s population and workers. Each one of them is at risk of being summarily deported if they are confused with someone suspected of committing an immigration misdemeanor. The Green Party of Colorado believes that mass deportations will disrupt
- Businesses with Latino and foreign-born workers and customers.
- Agencies and institutions with Latino and foreign-born workers and customers.
- Education for children in mixed-status families.
“We know that Trump’s promised military-enforced mass deportations will needlessly devastate countless families and communities in Colorado and across the nation.” said Green Party of Colorado Co-chair Patrick Dillon. “Our neighbors in the crosshairs of this political persecution don’t have the luxury of waiting for a different outcome in 2026. Elected leaders can still do something about “Operation Aurora” today. It’s our hope that elected officials, regardless of party, will join us in urging President Biden to act swiftly to prevent the worst version of this looming human rights crisis from becoming reality before it’s too late.”
This pardon proposal was first introduced in the waning days of the Obama Administration by the Center for Popular Democracy, Make the Road New York, National Day Laborer Organizing Network and was endorsed by over 100 advocacy organizations from across the nation.
The proposal, if it had been implemented at the time, sought to prevent the potential deportation of 100,000 – 200,000 families due to minor or old convictions. They also argued at the time that President Obama – now President Biden – wouldn’t be the first to take these types of sweeping actions to protect people from political persecution.
“In issuing the pardon we propose here, you would follow in the footsteps of Presidents Washington, Adams, Madison and Lincoln, who all issued categorical pardons protecting significant groups of people when it was in the national interest to shelter such individuals from vindictively hostile political winds.”
The legal question was also the subject of the New York University Law Review article released in 2018. In the conclusion of the article “Pardoning Immigrants” by Professors of Law Peter L. Markowitz and Lindsay Nash they stated the following;
“The immigration pardon, one exercise of the executive’s more general prosecutorial discretion powers, offers an important part of that solution. While direct categorical application of the pardon power to civil immigration offenses has no immediate precedent in history, it accords with the very purpose for which Presidents have, for centuries, issued categorical pardons: to use their inherent power of mercy and duty to promote the national interest to alleviate the toll of harsh laws on politically unpopular groups.
It is for these reasons that the Framers bestowed the pardon power upon Presidents—as a critical check against Congress’s general authority to make all laws. The pardon power serves as an essential backstop to avert unduly harsh negative consequences of legislative enactments.
As the devastation caused by current immigration laws continues to grow and traditional mechanisms for policymaking continue to fail, future Presidents should consider using the pardon power to forgive the civil offenses that result in some of the most unforgiving penalties in our justice system.”
We know President Obama didn’t act on it then, President Biden can still take broad action and do so now.
The Green Party of Colorado calls on all people of conscience, organizations, and elected officials to join us in demanding Mass Pardons Now before it’s too late and Mass Deportations begin by signing our petition today.
Petition Link: https://chng.it/BsGm8c9Wqb
