Immigrant advocates, pushing for passage of comprehensive immigration reform legislation this year, are targeting Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman’s district.

Coloradans for Citizenship Now, a coalition of organizations that support comprehensive immigration reform, launched a campaign on Sunday to mobilize current voters and register 7,000 new voters in the state’s 6th Congressional District.

Members of the group said they are reaching out to voters in several Republican congressional districts, but Coffman is a key focus because he represents a district that was bumped up to 20 percent Latino after the last round of redistricting.

“His district really changed into a more Latino and immigrant district,” said Celia Reyes Martinez, state director of Mi Familia Vota Education Fund.

“This is an issue that a lot of our families care about, and that’s why we are targeting his district because we know that there are a large number of people who support this position in his district,” Reyes Martinez said.

In a Sunday opinion piece published in The Denver Post,Coffman called for immigration reform.

Reform advocatescommended him for the piece but said they would like him to strongly support a path to citizenship for all of the 11 million immigrants who are in the country illegally and champion immigration reform with his Republican colleagues.

“Our immigration system is badly broken, and every day that it is allowed to continue constitutes amnesty for those who have violated our laws,” Coffman said in a statement to The Post. “The time for comprehensive immigration reform is now.”

U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., a member of the group negotiating immigration reform legislation in the House, thanked Coffman for his support in the opinion piece and added that more has to be done to get the bill through the House.

“We went through the Senate,” Gutierrez said. “We had a successful Senate. We celebrated and it was like somebody forgot there is a second period to this game.”

Zahira Torres: 303-954-1244, ztorres@denverpost.com or twitter.com/zahiratorresdp