A Denver judge Tuesday again barred Gov. Jared Polis from ordering state employees to comply with a subpoena from federal immigration officials for Coloradans’ personal information.
The ruling marks the latest loss for the governor in the lawsuit brought against him to stop the sharing of information with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement over the past year.
The case was first brought last June by Scott Moss, the former director of the Division of Labor Standards and Statistics at Colorado’s Department of Labor. Moss alleged Polis directed him to comply with an April 2025 subpoena from ICE requesting the personal information of 35 people serving as sponsors for unaccompanied immigrant children. Colorado law prohibits state officials from providing personal information to federal immigration officials unless it is related to a criminal investigation.
The subpoena sought information including phone numbers, addresses, email addresses, employer information, unemployment benefit filings, and paid sick leave and family leave information.
Denver District Judge A. Bruce Jones said last June the subpoena did not appear to be related to a criminal investigation and barred Polis from ordering Moss or his subordinates to comply.
After months of defending his attempted compliance with the subpoena, Polis earlier this year reversed his position and asked the judge to permanently block the release of the information and end the case, saying ICE no longer appeared interested in the information, but Jones denied that request.
Now a new subpoena from ICE, issued March 13, is seeking the same personal information from 13 Coloradans, 10 of whom the agency sought information about in the initial subpoena.
The March 13 subpoena says the request is part of a criminal investigation into human trafficking, but Jones, the judge, did not buy that.
“I don’t reach any different outcome for this subpoena because this subpoena looks, and I find is, simply papering over the flaw in the prior subpoena,” Jones said Tuesday.
Jones questioned why ICE waited nearly a year to resubmit the subpoena for information about some of the same people if the federal agency was really investigating human trafficking.
“Why do you wait a full year to correct it and say it is a criminal investigation?” Jones said. “Especially if it is child trafficking, not something you want to wait around on.”
In response to the March 13 subpoena, the state’s labor department legal counsel with the Colorado Attorney General’s Office asked ICE to instead request the information through a grand jury subpoena. The agency hasn’t responded, according to lawyers for Polis.
In his deposition this month, Polis said the governor’s office could still order labor department officials to respond without a grand jury subpoena, said Laura Wolf, a lawyer representing Moss.
Wolf hoped Jones would go further and prohibit Polis from complying with any federal immigration subpoenas. The judge declined to do that saying he only had enough evidence to weigh in on the March 13 subpoena.
In a statement, Polis spokesperson Eric Maruyama said, “The Governor is grateful that this is a limited ruling and the court did not preclude the state from complying with all other subpoenas or strengthening ongoing efforts with all law enforcement, including local and federal, to tackle serious crime and make Colorado one of the top 10 safest states.”
Jones said the governor could be held accountable in court for incorrectly complying with a subpoena after the fact. Wolf said responding to a subpoena could cause “irreparable harm” to those whose information is shared with ICE.
“Our only safeguard is this court,” she said.
Wolf also raised concerns about a new policy from the Polis administration from Feb. 12 about subpoena compliance, which gives the governor final say in how state agencies respond: “The agency should respond to the subpoena as directed by the Governor’s Office,” the policy says. It also requires agency officials to mark all communications about subpoena requests as “privileged.”
Jones said final say is in the hands of the governor as the state’s chief executive.
Polis’ handling of ICE subpoenas has brought criticism from some in his party.
In response to the lawsuit against Polis, state lawmakers are trying to further limit how the state can interact with ICE.
One proposal, House Bill 1276, would prohibit state and local agencies, not just individual officials, from sharing personal identifying information with federal immigration authorities unless it is being used in a criminal case. State agencies would have to publish ICE subpoenas they receive, and state and local agencies that comply with subpoenas would have to alert individuals that their information has been shared with ICE.
That bill is awaiting a hearing in the House Committee on Appropriations.
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