In 2006, Governor Owens signed the nation's toughest package of state laws for undocumented immigrants. I can't turn back the clock, but when I'm in the state senate I'll work for balance, for compassion, for softening some of the hard edges of the 2006 legislation.

I know well the obstacles that await non-citizen Latinos in Colorado. In 2003, Nuria Linares was a 60-hour a week sweatshop seamstress in a Fruit of the Loom maquila in earthquake-ravaged rural El Salvador when my husband and I sponsored her for a student visa and supported her education here. From not speaking a word of English she went—within one year—to getting the highest TOEFL score of any graduate of CU's International English Center, then—within two years—to a Front Range Community College degree, and—now—to a series of 4-point semesters at Regis University, and soon a B.A. and teaching certificate.

Until Regis, which recognized Nuria's gifts and broke its own rules by awarding her a scholarship, we struck out every time we sought help with her education. For non-citizens, it's full out-of-state tuition, no scholarships, and very little financial aid from Colorado's public institutions.

I've seen how hard Nuria works to succeed. I've visited her impoverished community that was leveled in 2001 by the 7.9 earthquake. I've been a guest in Nuria's family's makeshift temporary cardboard shelter. I've helped them and their town rebuild from the earthquake that destroyed it.

The struggles of immigrants—both "legal" and "illegal"—touch me profoundly. These are some changes I'll work for to put compassion back in our laws:

In higher education: A 2007 Colorado law clarified that citizen children of undocumented parents were entitled to in-state tuition. Undocumented children of undocumented parents should also get in-state tuition, as they do in ten states, if they have been in Colorado at least three years, graduated from Colorado high schools, and sign affidavits pledging to apply for legal status.

Scholarships to attend Colorado schools should be available to qualified non-citizens like Nuria, and to undocumented high school graduates too, as in Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico.

Pediatric public health benefits should be expressly available to undocumented residents, as they are in California, Washington, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and, to a lesser extent, Nebraska. This would not conflict with the 2006 laws which exempt from the denial of public benefits those 18 and under.

Human trafficking laws should be strengthened to match 2007 New York legislation to address the full range of traffickers' crimes against humanity.

Criminal sanctions against employers who cheat or abuse day laborers should be modeled on recent Illinois legislation. Abuses range from improperly docking immigrants' pay to forced labor in filthy conditions, as Boulder quarry workers from Mexico suffered a few years back.

And in the meantime Colorado political leaders must keep the pressure on Washington to still the xenophobic hysteria, suppress the nativist bigotry, and fulfill the federal responsibility to enact comprehensive immigration reform.