Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents’ conduct during arrests in Colorado has been “unlawful,” a federal judge ruled Tuesday in an order that restricts how immigration officers can arrest people in the state.
The preliminary injunction ruling is a significant victory for immigrants rights groups, who sued ICE last month to stop “indiscriminate” arrests and detentions. The lawsuit alleges that ICE agents are arresting and detaining people in Colorado because of their skin color, accent or perceived nationality, without determining flight risk, to fulfill arrest quotas set by the Trump administration.
ICE must repay the bond money posted by three named plaintiffs in the case, all immigrants arrested in Colorado, remove their ankle monitors and stop making warrantless arrests in the state without determining and documenting each person’s flight risk, according to the ruling by U.S. District Judge R. Brooke Jackson in Denver.
“ICE’s hubris and violent behavior have been on national display for months,” said Hans Meyer, owner of the Meyer Law Office and an immigration attorney for the plaintiffs. “But as Judge Jackson’s decision makes clear, no one – including ICE – is above the law.”
The Meyer Law Office filed the lawsuit along with the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado and Olson Grimsley Kawanabe Hinchcliff & Murray LLC.
ICE’s Denver field office referred questions to the Department of Homeland Security, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The ruling could force ICE to curb its arrests of bystanders in targeted operations or its use of large sweeps of apartment buildings and workplaces, where officers do not know the identities of all of the people they are arresting before they arrive.
The law firms sued ICE on behalf of four people, including Caroline Dias Goncalves, a 19-year-old University of Utah student who was brought to the U.S. as a child. ICE arrested Dias Goncalves in June after a Mesa County sheriff’s deputy pulled her over in Fruita and asked about her accent and immigration status. She spent 15 days in ICE’s Aurora detention center and paid $2,000 for her bond, according to the ACLU.
Jackson in Denver ruled that Dias Goncalves and two of the other plaintiffs now represent a class that includes all people arrested since Jan. 20, and people who will be arrested by immigration officers in Colorado “without a warrant and without a prearrest, individualized assessment of probable cause that the person poses a flight risk.”
Jackson ruled that ICE’s behavior of making warrantless arrests without probable cause that the people arrested are flight risks is “part of a larger policy, pattern or practice by ICE in this state.”
Jackson ordered immigration officers to stop making warrantless arrests in Colorado unless the arresting officer determines before the arrest that there is probable cause that the person is in the U.S. in violation of immigration laws and there is probable cause that the person will escape before a warrant can be obtained.
After a warrantless arrest, immigration officers now must document evidence of a person’s flight risk, including only evidence that they were aware of before making the arrest. That documentation will have to include evidence of a person’s ties to the community that weigh against flight risk.
ICE will have to provide the lawyers representing the plaintiffs a random set of these probable cause forms for their review regularly, the order said, and specific forms upon request.
In addition to repaying three of the plaintiffs’ bonds and removing their ankle monitors, ICE must rescind any reporting requirements for them. ICE also is barred from rearresting the plaintiffs without a judicial warrant, according to the order, and is not allowed to detain them again unless there is a “material change in circumstances.”
In his ruling, Jackson said the plaintiffs in the case have likely suffered irreparable harm due to ICE’s actions.
“Although none of them presented a flight risk by any reasonable measure, they were each arrested and detained without warning, ultimately spending between approximately two weeks and three months in custody,” Jackson’s order said. “On its own, this constitutes great harm.”
A plaintiff identified in the lawsuit as J.S.T. is a 36-year-old asylum-seeker who has lived in Colorado for 15 years. On Feb. 5, ICE agents raided the Whispering Pines Apartments complex in Aurora, where he had lived for seven years. ICE agents arrested J.S.T. as he was leaving the apartment parking lot to drive to his job at a restaurant and grocery store. He spent four weeks at the Aurora detention center and lost his home as a result, according to the lawsuit. He paid $25,000 for his bond, according to the ACLU.
And a plaintiff identified in the lawsuit as G.R.R. is a 32-year-old father and construction business owner who has lived in the U.S. for 11 years. In April, ICE agents raided a nightclub in Colorado Springs, where the lawsuit said G.R.R. was waiting as a designated driver for a friend. G.R.R. spent seven weeks at the Aurora detention center, according to the lawsuit. He paid $10,000 for his bond, according to the ACLU.
A fourth plaintiff, Refugio Ramirez Ovando, is a 43-year-old father who has lived in Colorado for 20 years and is the father of four U.S. citizen children. ICE agents in unmarked cars pulled him over in May when he was on his way to work in Grand Junction at the construction concrete company where he has worked for 18 years. ICE held him at the detention center in Aurora for more than 90 days, according to the lawsuit.
Jackson, who was nominated to the federal bench by President Barack Obama in 2011, found that Ramirez Ovando doesn’t have standing in the case because he has obtained legal permanent residency and is unlikely to suffer similar ongoing harms like the rest of the plaintiffs.
Citing testimony in the case last month from the third in command at ICE’s Denver field office, Greg Davies, Jackson said the court has reason to believe ICE has a pattern or practice of failing to assess people’s individual flight risks. Davis “could not seemingly recall the correct standard, stating, at one point, that he believed a warrantless arrest was authorized if ‘there’s a possibility of that person possibly escaping.’”
Meyer, a lawyer representing the plaintiffs, said he and the legal team are exploring what possible remedies might be available to people already arrested without warrants under similar circumstances in Colorado who could be considered part of the new class.
The preliminary injunction, he said, should be seen as a first step toward accountability for ICE’s actions. Meyer cautioned that ICE has chosen not to comply with court orders elsewhere.
“Coming right before Thanksgiving when people get to congregate with their families, this is a powerful decision that reinforces the fact that ICE has been terrorizing communities throughout Colorado and breaking federal law with impunity,” he said. “Our expectation is that ICE will now be held to account for its lawlessness by the courts.”
