Surrounded by advocates, clergy and lawmakers at the Massachusetts statehouse in Boston, Gov. Maura Healey last month unveiled her bill that would prohibit federal agents from making warrantless civil arrests in courthouses, churches or schools in the state.
The proposal would also keep U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement out of child care centers and hospitals and allow parents to make guardianship arrangements for their children should they be detained. Earlier this year, Healey, a Democrat, signed an executive order outlawing the use of state property for immigration enforcement.
“I’m going to take charge of what I can take charge of and what I have jurisdiction and authority over,” she told The Boston Globe.
In the wake of recent violence from federal immigration officers in Minnesota earlier this year, Democratic governors are increasingly leading the pushback against ICE and what advocates describe as abuses by agents.
But not Gov. Jared Polis.
At a similar news conference on the Colorado Capitol steps earlier this month, advocates and lawmakers rallied in support of related policies. Polis was nowhere to be found.
As Polis takes a hands-off approach, state lawmakers are taking the lead on further regulating ICE in Colorado. And, unlike many of his counterparts across the country, Polis so far is signaling he may not be on board with their ideas.
In a statement, Polis said he is hoping to see “guardrails” placed on the Department of Homeland Security at the federal level and praised the immigration-related laws Colorado already has.
“While I am always willing to work with legislators to find the best path forward for Colorado on any issue, including immigration and working with our federal law enforcement partners to apprehend criminals, I am mindful of what we already have on the books,” Polis said in a statement.
In his State of the State address in January, Polis spoke out against the Trump administration’s federal immigration enforcement, calling it a “costly and often cruel” agenda and pointing to how few people in immigration detention have been convicted of a crime … just 25%. The comments were a shift from last year, when he expressed support for immigration enforcement, saying, “As a state, we welcome more federal help to detain and deport dangerous criminals.”
Polis’ change in tone left Democratic lawmakers backing new immigration-related policies hopeful they would have his support. Now they say they are moving forward, with or without him.
If he does not like the proposals, he can let them become law without his signature, said Rep. Lorena Garcia, an Adams County Democrat.
“Coloradans want greater protections for Coloradans, whether we’re immigrants or not, and my expectation is that the governor understands that that’s where his state is, and that he supports these bills,” Garcia said.
States have an important role to play, said Tanya Broder, senior counsel for health and economic justice policy at the National Immigration Law Center.
“Governors and other elected leaders in the states are charged with protecting their residents from abuses and from interference with their ability to learn, seek medical care, worship or otherwise function,” she said. “States and localities are grappling with what they can do in the face of federal actions.”
Rep. Meg Froelich, D-Englewood, who traveled to Minnesota last month to meet with lawmakers from 27 other states and hear directly from people impacted by ICE’s crackdown there, said there is no issue more important to her constituents than this one.
“It has eclipsed affordability,” she said. “We’re not out on a limb on this. Nobody is going to be able to sit on their hands.”
Polis’ reticence to do more on immigration may be out of step not only with some of his fellow Democratic governors, but also with his party’s voters. In a national NPR/PBS News/Marist poll of 1,462 U.S. adults at the end of January, 65% said ICE had “gone too far,” an 11 point increase since last summer. Among Democrats, 93% said ICE had gone too far, up 10 points since last summer.
The poll followed mass arrests and detentions of immigrants in Minnesota after other ICE surges in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York last year, and the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, both 37, at the hands of federal immigration officers.
In his statement, Polis said he has been “disturbed” by the enforcement in Minneapolis and has demanded “thorough investigations” into the killings of Good and Pretti.
“We are committed to going after criminals, no matter where they are from, but that’s not what we’re seeing with these actions,” Polis said. “Colorado is focused on reducing crime, not tearing innocent children away from their families.”
Colorado already has laws, all signed by Polis, aimed at protecting immigrants. One bans local law enforcement from coordinating with federal immigration officials. Others prohibit immigration arrests of people going to or coming from courthouses and block state and local officials from sharing personal information with ICE unless it is for a criminal investigation.
Those measures have not been enough to stop what a federal judge earlier this year called “unlawful” warrantless arrests in Colorado, including of people at courthouses and in coordination with local law enforcement.
“The goalposts have changed,” said Hans Meyer, a Denver-based immigration attorney who sued ICE over the warrantless arrests. “We’re in a brave new world where the federal government, and particularly DHS, has become a completely lawless agency. We at the state level need to respond with additional protections we never thought would be necessary in a free society.”
From Jan. 20 to Oct. 15 of last year, ICE agents arrested at least 3,522 people in Colorado, according to the most recent data obtained from ICE and published by the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law’s Deportation Data Project.
Just 37% of those arrested had any prior criminal convictions, records show.
Immigrants detained at the Aurora ICE detention center, owned and operated by the private prison company GEO Group, say they are suffering hunger, sleep deprivation, stress and the loss of their homes as the Trump administration has made it more difficult to get released.
Now, Democratic lawmakers in Colorado are pushing for more protections even as the Trump administration has again threatened to cut funding to “sanctuary” cities.
In January, Colorado Democrats introduced a bill they say will close a legal gap by allowing people who suffer constitutional violations at the hands of federal immigration officers to sue them in state court. Another bill would require law enforcement to get a warrant in many cases for data from Flock cameras that police use to track license plates.
Democrats say they expect to introduce bills next week that would ban public airports, buses and trains from being used to transport people in detention, require all law enforcement agents to wear identification and show their faces, increase state oversight of detention centers and block ICE from hospitals, schools and day care centers, among other measures.
Another proposal would expand on the law passed last year that prohibits state officials from sharing personal identifying information with federal immigration authorities unless it is being used in a criminal case. It would prohibit state and local agencies, not just individual officials, from sharing the information.
The proposal is a reaction to a lawsuit brought against Polis in June by Scott Moss, the former director of the Division of Labor Standards and Statistics at Colorado’s Department of Labor, who alleged Polis directed him to comply with an immigration subpoena from ICE requesting the personal information of 35 people.
The judge in that case has so far sided with Moss, blocking Polis from ordering Moss, but not the agency, to hand over the information.
Similar policies have already been adopted or are currently being considered by other states.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker in December signed into law a policy allowing state residents to sue immigration agents, similar to the bill making its way through Colorado’s Capitol. The Illinois measure has already drawn a lawsuit from the Trump administration.
California, New York, Virginia, Maryland and Connecticut are considering similar measures. New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signaled her support last month.
California’s mask ban for federal agents was shot down by a federal judge this week, but the ruling signaled a ban would be lawful if it applied to all law enforcement officers, not just federal ones. The law’s drafters have vowed to rewrite it.
New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed a bill into law this month that prohibits cities and counties from signing or renewing federal contracts to detain individuals for civil immigration violations.
Colorado’s lawmakers are coordinating with their counterparts elsewhere and monitoring the outcomes of federal lawsuits closely to make sure theirs are “constitutional, defendable and implementable,” said Rep. Elizabeth Velasco, D-Glenwood Springs.
“Our job is to do as much as we can and to make sure that we’re not leaving anything on the table,” she said.
The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to covering Colorado issues. To learn more, go to coloradosun.com.
