Congressman Jason Crow holds roundtable with African American leaders in Aurora | Aurora
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U.S. Rep. Jason Crow sat down for a roundtable discussion with local African American leaders in Aurora on Thursday. Questions for the congressmen ranged from immigration issues to housing to abortion rights. U.S. Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, who represents New York’s 6th Congressional District and is the Democratic Caucus chairman, joined Crow for the event.
The first question came from Papa Dia, founder of the African Leadership Group in Aurora. Dia came to the United States from Senegal, West Africa, in 1998. Some members of his family have spent two decades trying to obtain working documents, he told Crow and Jeffries, and asked the congressmen what they were doing to address immigration reform.
Crow advocated for an expansion of the visa program to help fill worker shortages and unify families. He also pointed to his sponsorship of the Bridging the Gap for New Americans Act, which will scale up efforts to help immigrants’ use their degrees and licenses after they arrive in the U.S.
Many credentials do not transfer easily, Crow said, leaving people who were doctors or engineers in their previous country unable to continue those careers here.
People come to the U.S. from all over the world to pursue the American Dream, Jeffries said, but called the immigration system broken and falling short of “our glorious history as a nation of immigrants.”
“We are truly a nation of immigrants, and we’ve got to be able to continue to live up to that,” Jeffries said.
Omar Montgomery, president of NAACP’s Aurora chapter, addressed Jeffries and Crow about rising interest rates, families losing their homes or falling victim to predatory loans. Owning a home is “that gateway to generational wealth,” he said. The NAACP sees that as a civil rights issue. He wanted to know, are there conversations happening at the federal level to help people stay in their homes?
Jeffries criticized Republicans for refusing to get behind policies that would have prevented foreclosures, and touted investing $150 billion into the creation and preservation of affordable housing. He recognizes “the importance of the federal government stepping into the affordable housing space.”
When Jeffries first entered Congress a decade ago, gentrification and affordable housing were largely seen as coastal problems, he said.
“But now, it’s an American problem, all over,” he said.
Crow said from a local standpoint the key problem is Colorado’s lack of housing, saying “it’s largely a stock issue.” A Democratic-led bill to expand low-income housing tax credits should help, he vowed, because 90% of affordable housing in the state is built with it. The Inflation Reduction Act doubles as an affordable housing bill, while addressing other issue, by alleviating the pressure of rising costs on homeowners, he said.
Sheila Davis is founder of the Black Health Initiative and health chair for the NAACP. As Colorado becomes “a destination state for maternal health” after the fall of Roe v. Wade, she wanted to know the congressmen’s plan for strengthening the state’s healthcare infrastructure.
“This is a disaster,” Crow said, adding that “young girls who are rape victims” are seeking care in Colorado because they cannot receive it in their home state. He can’t control state legislatures, he said, but would continue to push for federal protections now that abortion access is not enshrined in case law.
Crow is also worried about prosecutors obtaining a woman’s consumer data for expenses such as contraception and travel in order to prosecute them. He will be working toward bolstering privacy protections, he said, although he did not elaborate on how he might accomplish that.
Crow is further concerned for female service members, he said, citing estimates that about 40% of women servicemembers will be posted in states that restrict abortion care.
“These are women who have raised their right hand, and are willing to give their lives,” Crow said.
The congressman is pursuing several forms of relief working with other legislators, he said. Those include allowing military healthcare facilities to provide full healthcare, the use of “compassionate reassignment” and treating reproductive services as time-sensitive healthcare. That should give female servicemembers confidential medical leave and protection from retribution, Crow said.
The day’s last question came from Arapahoe County Commissioner Bill Holen, who noted ARPA and CARES funding will eventually come to an end. Some elderly and minority residents will struggle determining whether they pay for food or energy as they head into the winter months, he said. He suggested continuing some relief programs on a sliding scale as the economy continues to recover from the pandemic.
“We are evaluating all of the options that will be available to us,” Jeffries said.
The goal is to transition as smoothly out of the pandemic as possible, he said, promising to keep such issues in mind whiling working on end of year spending agreements in Congress. Crow added that the infrastructure and inflation wills are intended to help with those challenges as well.
Crow also responded to comments from Holen about the Front Range’s worsening air quality and downgrading from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. He has worked toward funding the construction of electric vehicle charging stations, he said.
“American has a history of building infrastructure in an unjust way,” Crow said, explaining “bad infrastructure” like oil refineries or highways are often located by underserved communities. Infrastructure projects should go through environmental processes to prevent that inequity, he said.
“At the same time, the good infrastructure should also be equitably distributed,” he said.
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