Immigration policy: Democrats allege hypocrisy in comments made by Coffman.

Congressman’s campaign: Quotes taken out of context

Democrats accused Rep. Mike Coffman, R-Colo., of doubledealing Wednesday after audio surfaced of the congressman supporting a zero tolerance immigration policy, calling for an end to the visa lottery program and describing President Donald Trump’s plan for children brought into the U.S. illegally as overly generous.

The five-term Republican representative has consistently supported bills creating a path to citizenship for people brought to the U.S. illegally as children. He criticized the White House’s recent zero tolerance policy that resulted in families being separated at the border.

And Democrats were quick to seize on what they allege is a clear case of hypocrisy.

“Behind closed doors, Mike Coffman revealed who he really is: A fraud,” said Jason Crow, the Democrat running to defeat Coffman in Colorado’s 6th Congressional District.

But Coffman’s campaign was quick to respond with a message of its own: The quotes were taken out of context from a recording of the Highlands Ranch Chamber luncheon for the purpose of “muddying the waters” around Coffman’s record on immigration.

“Every cycle they come back and say Mike Coffman isn’t what he says he is,” Coffman campaign spokesman Tyler Sandberg said. “I don’t believe that’s controversial or different than what he’s been saying for years.”

Zero tolerance

“I think we have to, I know we have to, transition to zero tolerance,” Coffman said as part of a long response to a woman who asked about “anchor babies,” a derogatory term used for the American-born children of undocumented immigrants.

And the word “transition” is key, Sandberg said.

Coffman, he said, wasn’t proposing switching to a zero tolerance policy immediately. He believes it’s the final step in a long process of immigration reform and pointed to a January 2017 opinion piece Coffman wrote for The Denver Post in which he proposed making it a criminal offense to cross the border illegally but only after “a brief window where those illegally in the country can come out of the shadows.”

You can hear a similar explanation on the Highlands Ranch Chamber luncheon audio.

About a minute after Coffman mentions zero tolerance, he tells the same woman that he supports work visas for people who crossed the border illegally, but have committed no other crimes. He also mentions that he supports a path to citizenship for kids brought across the border by their parents.

“We have to be tough, but at the same time I think we have realize that we haven’t been tough for a really long time,” Coffman said.

DACA

“He probably has a more generous plan for DACA than I would,” Coffman told the attendees at the Chamber luncheon.

Coffman supports a path to citizenship for the approximately 800,000 registered DACA recipients, but he said the president floated the idea of opening that up to an additional 1 million people who are likely eligible for the program.

The White House floated the idea in January. It never went anywhere, and it remains unclear whether the president would have signed it. Coffman voted for a House bill in June that would have put all 1.8 million on a potential path to citizenship.

Visa lottery program

“Then, what he does is he does away from visa lottery program that was really designed when we were not as diverse as we are today … ,” Coffman said. “It is a lottery, and so he does away with that program, and I agree with that.”

The program is actually called the Diversity Immigrant Visa Program. The program randomly selects up to 50,000 people each year from countries with low rates of immigration to the U.S. Every recipient has to pass a background check, but the green cards they receive are based on luck rather than education or skills.