DENVER -- Too many women who end up in bad relationships can relate to Virginia Mancinas' story, who was attacked by her husband in 2011 but never pressed charges for fear of retaliation.
"He got home drunk, very drunk and he attacked me," Mancinas said of the horrible memories etched in her mind of the June 2011 attack inside their home in Glenwood Springs.
"I'm not sure if he put a weapon behind my head or not. I’m not sure, but he said he has a weapon and I was so nervous, I decided to call police."
Virginia called 911 and told the dispatcher everything that happened. Every detail of how her husband beat and threatened her.
"But when the police arrived, I decided not to tell them anything."
Mancinas' story happens too often to women. And you know the scenario. She was afraid of her husband, and afraid of what he would do to her if police got involved. When the Garfield County Sheriff’s Office came to the door, she changed her story and said nothing was wrong.
Mancinas' eyes swelled as she talked about how she was trying to protect her husband, something she now regrets doing. Because, even though he had resident status, she did not - she was an undocumented immigrant - and she was worried he would end up deported. But that didn't happen and he was let go.
Little did she know how this would backfire on her.
"They treated me like a criminal," she told Denver7's Anne Trujillo.
Mancinas herself was arrested and charged with false reporting. And U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement officials were called, so she was put on an immigration hold which started a whole new chain of events for Mancinas, who sat in ICE custody for two weeks — never once getting medical attention for her bruised body.
"We doubly victimized Virginia and we’ve got to make sure this doesn't happen anymore in the state of Colorado" says Democratic Representative Dan Pabon, one of the sponsors of HB18-1417, a new legislation designed with Virginia’s story in mind, to protect the Constitutional rights of Colorado residents, even if they are undocumented.
"If you have problems, if you call police, of course you call for help, and they don't do that… they just sent me to jail… almost they sent me to Mexico," Mancinas said.
That experience has Mancinas afraid of police and she says she won’t ever call law enforcement again.
"Everybody knows what happens when we go to jail and we don’t have any status," she said, adding it is just understood in her community that you are not safe. "I have friends who have the same problem, they won’t call police, they are afraid."
Mancinas, who cleans homes for a living and has worked for a handful of families for years, now has resident status but she considers herself one of the lucky ones. One of her clients, who she considers family, hired a lawyer to step in on her behalf. She was able to go back to her life and decided to share her story with Denver7, because she cannot bear the thought of anyone else experiencing an ordeal like this. Mancinas is speaking up now because of the possibilities HB18-1417 offers. In the words of the sponsor Pabon: "We don’t want to change the scales of justice simply because you are an undocumented person in Colorado.”
Here’s what the bill states:
The bill prohibits county law enforcement agencies from detaining individuals for the federal immigration and customs enforcement agency (ICE) or providing notifications of an individual's release date and time to ICE unless ICE has a judicial warrant. The bill prohibits renewal of current intergovernmental service agreements with ICE and prohibits new agreements. The bill requires local law enforcement officers to administer an advisement of rights to an individual prior to an ICE interview, informing the individual that he or she has the right to deny an ICE interview request and that he or she can exercise his or her constitutional rights.
The bill requires the department of human services to develop and publish model policies to ensure that public schools, state-funded colleges and universities, public libraries, public health facilities, shelters, courthouses, probation offices, and entities providing criminal court-ordered classes, treatment, and appointments are places that are accessible to all residents regardless of immigration status. All public schools, state-funded colleges and universities, public libraries, public health facilities, shelters, and courthouses shall adopt the policies or equivalent policies. Probation offices and entities providing criminal court-ordered classes, treatment, and appointments may adopt the policies or equivalent policies.
Mancinas looks back now on how law enforcement handled her case and has so many questions.
"Why they don’t ask me more, why they don’t check me, why they don’t see me? And my husband... he was totally drunk. Why they don’t see that he was totally drunk? They treated me like nothing."
And when asked what she would say to those who believe she shouldn't be in this country at all, she says: "Nothing. Everybody thinks different and we are here for some reason."
Her parents brought her here when she was 14-years-old, escaping a dangerous situation in Chihuahua, Mexico.
"This is my home. We don’t have anybody else in Mexico."
HB18-1417 was introduced to the House on Friday and is under consideration.
