The U.S. Division of Justice is suing Colorado and Denver’s high elected officers in an effort to overturn “sanctuary legal guidelines” that restrict federal immigration enforcement within the metropolis and state, in line with a grievance filed Friday in U.S. District Courtroom.
The lawsuit names Gov. Jared Polis, Lawyer Normal Phil Weiser, Denver Mayor Mike Johnston, Denver Sheriff Elias Diggins, Denver Metropolis Council and the Metropolis and County of Denver.
President Donald Trump’s administration is looking for to overturn a number of legal guidelines, together with a 2023 invoice that prohibits regulation enforcement from protecting folks in jail on immigration detainers and a 2021 invoice that bars state workers from sharing folks’s private data with federal immigration officers.
The grievance begins by citing a viral video of suspected members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua forcing their method into flats on the troubled Fringe of Lowry residence advanced in Aurora on the finish of 2024, which sparked a nationwide furor over immigration coverage within the weeks earlier than the election.
The flats had been later closed by Aurora metropolis officers.
Tren de Aragua’s foothold within the U.S. is “the direct byproduct of the sanctuary insurance policies pushed by the State of Colorado,” federal attorneys wrote within the grievance.
“It is a swimsuit to place an finish to these disastrous insurance policies and restore the supremacy of federal immigration regulation,” the lawsuit states.
Federal officers additionally quoted Douglas County Commissioner Kevin Van Winkle that the state’s legal guidelines pose “a severe public security difficulty.”
In an announcement, Gov. Jared Polis’ workplace denied that Colorado is a sanctuary state however declined to remark “on the deserves of the lawsuit.”
“The State of Colorado works with native, state and federal regulation enforcement usually and we worth our partnerships with native, county and federal regulation enforcement companies to make Colorado safer. If the courts say that any Colorado regulation just isn’t legitimate then we’ll comply with the ruling,” spokesperson Eric Maruyama mentioned in an announcement.
Denver officers mentioned the town follows all native, state and federal legal guidelines and is able to defend its values, metropolis officers mentioned in an announcement.
“Denver is not going to be bullied or blackmailed, least of all by an administration that has little regard for the regulation and even much less for the reality,” metropolis officers mentioned Friday.
Colorado’s sanctuary legal guidelines hinder the federal authorities’s capacity to manage immigration, U.S. attorneys wrote within the grievance. The state’s legal guidelines additionally violate the supremacy of the U.S. Structure, discriminate in opposition to and try to manage the federal authorities, the lawsuit states.
Together with state legal guidelines, the grievance names a Denver ordinance prohibiting police from holding folks on civil immigration detainers and a 2017 government order by former Mayor Michael Hancock that, partly, requires “defending the rights and liberties of immigrants and refugees” and serving to kids and households separated by “a damaged federal immigration system.”
The lawsuit got here as Colorado lawmakers had been debating a invoice to broaden the state’s current immigration protections.
Senate Invoice 276 would additionally bar native governments or different public entities from sharing information with immigration authorities, and it will block Immigraton and Customs Enforcement brokers from getting into private areas of public buildings with no warrant.
The invoice’s Democratic sponsors mentioned the invoice is important to guard immigrants’ due course of rights and that immigration enforcement was the federal authorities’s job — not native authorities.
Home Republicans, in the meantime, had argued that the invoice would immediate blowback from the Trump administration, and so they unsuccessfully tried to amend the invoice to invalidate it ought to Trump attempt to block federal funding because of the invoice’s passage.
The Home in the end handed the invoice on an preliminary voice vote early Friday night. They had been prone to go it absolutely within the coming days. After some ultimate procedural strikes, it will then transfer to Gov. Jared Polis for passage into regulation.
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