Newly elected Aurora council pushes back against ICE, passes resolution

AURORA | People lined the walls with only standing room left in city council chambers Monday with people eager to speak to lawmakers about a resolution that would condemn the shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis by an ICE officer, as well as local issues regarding ICE in Aurora. 

After hours of public input, the majority of city council members approved a measure that condemns ICE’s actions while also strengthening state laws and constitutional rights. 

The law in no way makes Aurora a sanctuary city contrary to social media “misinformation,” proponents said.

It was the first time since the Nov. 4 city council election that a newly elected and incumbent bloc of progressive lawmakers flexed their political muscle and pushed through an issue that has long seethed in the city and has now engulfed much of the nation.

“It is not about inflammatory sanctuary city rhetoric or removing the federal authority to enforce immigration law,” Councilmember Alison Coombs said the measure’s prime sponsor. “It’s about opposing the actions that have demonstrably been taken in the course of immigration enforcement that are violent, that oppose state law here in Colorado, and then also oppose and remove people’s constitutionally protected right at the federal level.”

Gardner  and Hancock admonished Coombs for pushing the resolution to the council floor as an emergency measure, instead of taking it through the council committee system.

Coombs said the urgency was called for because of the imminent danger to immigrants and the general public in Aurora since the Minneapolis shooting.

Hancock said the resolution wrongly implied the city doesn’t follow state law precluding police from assisting ICE officers in immigration cases. She told Coombs she saw no infractions of due process rights of immigrants as ICE agents make arrests.

Coombs said that ICE agents arbitrarily selecting people in American cities for arrest based on their ethnicity and language, and without warrants, is the definition of a violation of criminal law.
“It can’t be any clearer than that,” Coombs said. 

Many of the dozens of people who attended spoke about  what they also said is a violation of due process as ICE and other federal officials spread out across the country as part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation effort. Others told lawmakers during more than two hours of testimony that no person can be “illegal,” especially on stolen native lands. 

“How does one acknowledge stolen land and forced removal while continuing to allow the GEO facility to operate down the street.” Tiara Brown, a resident of Ward II and a member of the Northern Ute tribe, said. “How does one acknowledge stolen land and forced removal and not denounce ICE and sign this resolution?”

The resolution, sponsored by Councilmember Alison Coombs, garnered the six council votes needed to pass, with council members Stephanie Hancock, Franciose Bergan, Angela Lawson and Curtis Gardner voicing disagreement and voting no. Mayor Mike Coffman did not vote on the resolution. 

Much of their opposition stemmed from the allegations that the resolution was more symbolic, rhetorical, and divisive, and that it was redundant rather than an active policy change.  

The measure states that Aurora opposes “unlawful and overreaching federal immigration enforcement” by ignoring legal and constitutional guardrails.

“When people are being picked up off the street because of what they look like and what they sound like, not because of any actual proof, not because of a warrant, not because of anything else,” Coombs said. “I don’t know what that could possibly be, other than not only illegal but also unjust seizure of their person.”

Specifically, the measure condemns an ICE agent for “extrajudicially” shooting Renee Good last week.

Good, 37, was killed Wednesday after three Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers surrounded her Honda Pilot SUV on a snowy street a few blocks from her Minneapolis home. Video taken by bystanders shows an officer approaching the SUV stopped across the middle of the road, demanding the driver open the door and grabbing the handle.

The vehicle begins to pull forward, and a different ICE officer standing in front of it pulls his weapon and immediately fires three shots at close range, jumping back as the vehicle moves toward him. In the footage, it does look as though Good turned the wheel away from both officers while attempting to drive away before she was shot.

“We demand due process for all these ICE agents to get 47 days of training, and in 40 seconds they can also murder a woman,” Erica Herrera, an Aurora resident, said Monday. 

Trump administration officials have called Renee Good a “domestic terrorist” who tried to run over an officer with her vehicle. Trump  and top administration officials have defended the ICE officer who shot Good, saying he fired at her through her windshield in self defense. State and local officials in Minneapolis, as well as protesters, have rejected that characterization and narrative.

Many in Aurora’s city council chambers Monday also rejected that characterization. 

The resolution also calls out ICE and the GEO ICE jail in Aurora not only for recent immigrant deportation efforts, but for what the resolution says is a historical record of abuses. 

The GEO ICE facility in Aurora has been accused for years of mistreatment of inmates, and has been, on at least three occasions, the subject of wrongful death lawsuits.

Aurora Democratic Congressperson Jason Crow has battled federal officials under Democratic and Republican administrations in an effort for the privately operated detention center to provide greater transparency about inmates held there, their conditions and the circumstances surrounding their incarceration. On Monday, Crow announced he was returning to court to force Homeland Security officials to allow for unannounced visits, citing a new attempt by the Trump administration to “secretly” keep members of Congress from the inspections.

Coombs, in the resolution, referred to a recent “unmanaged” illness at the facility, which was reported by Rep. Crow’s office Jan. 5 after a recent visit. 

Federal ICE officials did not reply to a request for information about illness at the facility.

“This is not a moral system,  it is a market,” Aly DeWills-Marcano told city lawmakers.  “When incarceration becomes a business model, due process becomes an obstacle instead of a right. Illness and disease become a cost of doing business, families become collateral damage, and cities like Aurora are left hosting facilities that profit from suffering while externalizing the harm to our communities. This resolution is important because it says Aurora will not be complicit.”

Only three people testified against the measure, asking lawmakers to oppose the resolution. Gardner said he had received far more emails opposing the resolution than people in the room on Monday backing it.

Multiple people who spoke to lawmakers demanded the city council go further and ban ICE from wearing masks in the city, while also asking city council to close the GEO ICE facility in Aurora altogether.

The proposed resolution also referred to an allegation that “A father and child were taken by ICE this week from our city on the way to school and daycare.”

Details on that charge were not immediately available, but a healthcare worker who came to speak publicly on the matter said she had spoken to the family about the incident. Councilmember Alli Jackson said during the hearing the immigrants involved were a father and his daughter.

This resolution is a turnaround from messaging by the city council during the last four years, and especially the last two.

The conservative majority on the city council previously backed Trump’s efforts to enforce mass deportations in Aurora, and across the country.

Local police have conveyed mixed messaging on their stance in assisting federal immigration officials, saying they would cooperate with ICE and others if they deemed suspects as criminals, but they also have said that local police will not enforce immigration law alone.

Chief Todd Chamberlain released a statement earlier on Monday about the resolution on social media saying that “Federal partnerships are nothing new” and added that “unfortunately, they have been exploited for political purposes.”

“Keeping these partnerships out of the equation of public safety will leave the community more vulnerable to crime and victimization,” Chamberlain said in the statement. “It is imperative for the community to understand the Aurora Police Department does not enforce federal immigration laws and has no authority to detain people on civil immigration detainers.”

He later released more on social media, saying the resolution will have consequences.

“I respect the autonomy of the city council,” Chamberlain said. “However, I believe it will come at a cost.”

Chamberlain did not immediately detail what the consequences of the resolution might be.

During the past year, Aurora police have on more than one occasion held suspects to facilitate ICE arrests and incarcerations.

“We have and will continue to work closely with our law enforcement partners at the local, state and federal levels to hold those who victimize members of our community accountable for their criminal actions,” Chamberlain said in the statement. 

In October 2024, Trump brought his anti-immigration presidential campaign to Aurora at the behest of former Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky.

Some speakers on Monday chastised Chief Chamberlain for appearing at the rally, posing for pictures with Trump, and admonishing critics for sending Aurora police recruiters to the event to pitch open positions at the Aurora police department.

Chamberlain has defended the move, saying it showed the Aurora police department was apolitical in its work.

The campaign event and Jurinsky’s regular appearance on Fox News TV and other right-wing media drew national attention to the city. Jurinsky and Trump falsely claimed that parts of Aurora, and three apartment complexes in particular, had been overtaken by Venezuelan gang members belonging to Tren de Aragua. 

Local police and state officials have repeatedly rebutted the allegation, saying that amid a surge of immigrants being sent to Denver by Texas state officials, some gang-related issues were reported at three apartments, but the incidents were isolated and the complexes were not overrun with gang members.
City officials are in the midst of suing landlords of the three properties, alleging gross mismanagement of the sites.

In November, Republicans lost their majority control of the city council. Democrats now have a 6-4 vote majority among lawmakers and have the ability to push through measures rebuking past conservative mandates by the city council.

The measure on Monday said that Aurora “stands in solidarity with the Twin Cities in their call for ICE to leave their community immediately,” according to city documents.

“The Aurora City Council opposes lawlessness and overreach by ICE agents” and will “provide direction to city management regarding limiting cooperation with ICE and their affiliates” after policy committee meetings in February, according to the proposed resolution.

After debate over whether the resolution is redundant and performative, or a substantial message, the room full of proponents cheered loudly when it passed, saying it was the confirmation they expected from their city council. 

“This resolution does not create lawlessness,” Aurora resident Aaron Futrell said. “It creates safety. Again. It creates safety. It draws a line that says Aurora will not participate in tearing families apart.”