Says Ritter Administration Must Provide Full Accounting to Colorado Taxpayers In Wake of Labor Department ActionsScott McInnis, Republican candidate for Governor, today called on the Ritter Administration to fully account to taxpayers for Labor Department employees disabling the legally required check for immigration status before awarding unemployment benefits.
"We constantly hear that the waste and fraud in state government has been rooted out, and then we see this type of raw disregard for state law and common sense," McInnis said. "That state bureaucrats seem to have knowingly disabled a legally required system to prevent the payment of unemployment benefits to illegal immigrants is an outrage. The people of Colorado deserve answers."
According to published reports, a string of emails from within the state Labor Department clearly show that workers were ordered to disable the checking system.
"This is wrong on at least three levels," McInnis said. "It wastes precious tax dollars. It gives aid and comfort to illegal immigrants. And it's a slap in the face to the Legislature that passed this law to strike back at the illegal immigration crisis."
McInnis called on Gov. Ritter to conduct a full investigation and provide Colorado taxpayers with a complete accounting for every dollar that may have gone to illegal immigrants. McInnis said the investigation should extend government wide to determine if other state agencies were also ignoring provisions of the law.
