As the year with President Donald Trump back in power draws to a close, his administration has made painfully clear that the law, the Constitution and human decency are obstacles to be bulldozed, not boundaries to be respected.
That is why a growing caucus of state legislators from across the country deserves not just attention, but loud support.
The issue strikes at the very heart of what Aurora is, a community that has for decades been a beacon for immigrants as a place where fairness and opportunity not only exist, but are profoundly promoted.
From Colorado to California, New York to Illinois, state lawmakers are stepping into a vacuum left by a federal government that has abandoned the rule of law. They are doing so not out of ideology, but necessity, as credible reports mount that the Trump administration is detaining people without warrants, without due process, and increasingly, without regard to whether those swept up are undocumented at all.
This is not conjecture nor partisan spin. State lawmakers detailed a disturbing pattern during a recent multi-state briefing last week. People suspected of being undocumented immigrants are held without lawful authority, ICE operates without judicial warrants, and most alarming, U.S. citizens and legally documented immigrants are detained for no legitimate reason. That is not immigration enforcement.
It’s lawlessness wearing a federal badge.
Trump promised voters that mass deportations would target “criminals.” That promise has collapsed under the weight of reality. Instead of focused enforcement, the administration is conducting broad, indiscriminate sweeps that target brown and Black communities in hopes of “snagging” immigrants along the way. The strategy is as ugly as it is unconstitutional. It spreads fear, disrupts families and dares the courts and states to stop it.
Aurora Democratic state Sen. Mike Weissman put it plainly and powerfully. States, he said, have been forced to become “laboratories where remedies are being developed to protect our country from the disease of authoritarianism that is spreading out from Washington, DC.”
It is a sober assessment of a federal government acting outside its legal authority.
Colorado’s Senate Bill 25-276, signed into law earlier this year, is a blueprint for resistance grounded in the Constitution. It affirms the reality that constitutional protections apply to everyone, regardless of immigration status. It bars jails from holding people longer than legally allowed just to help ICE. It clarifies, accurately, that ICE detainers are not arrest warrants under the Fourth Amendment. And it backs rights with real remedies, because rights without enforcement are meaningless.
Denver Democratic state Rep. Lorena Garcia went further, calling out the reality many communities already know. “ICE is actually, in fact, not a law enforcement agency. It is a lawless agency.”
That statement should alarm anyone who believes in ordered liberty. Law enforcement agencies are and must be bound by law. When an agency routinely ignores warrants, due process and basic accountability, states have not just the right, but the obligation, to intervene.
Other states are doing exactly that. New York lawmakers are proposing bills requiring judicial warrants before local cooperation with ICE and allowing people to sue when their constitutional rights are violated. California has enacted a “No Secret Police” law barring officers from hiding their faces during enforcement actions. Illinois is moving to protect hospitals, schools and courthouses while creating civil causes of action for abuses.
These measures are not radical. They are conservative in the truest sense in that they conserve the Constitution, due process and the principle that the government must always answer to the people.
Critics of measures to hold the Trump administration within the boundaries of the law will cry “sanctuary cities” and “obstruction.” But what these states are obstructing is not justice, but injustice. They are blocking federal agents from acting like paramilitary units, abducting people in broad daylight, eroding public trust and violating rights with impunity. They are insisting that if the federal government wants cooperation, it must first obey the law.
When the federal government normalizes warrantless detention and racialized sweeps, it sets a precedent that endangers everyone. Today, it’s immigrants. Tomorrow, it will be political dissenters, protesters or anyone deemed by Trump to be inconvenient or even disliked.
The caucus of state legislators pushing back against the Trump administration understands this moment. They are drawing a line where Congress and Washington refuse to. They are reminding the country that fear is not policy, and authoritarianism is not leadership.
They deserve the full backing of every American who still believes that no political party, president, no agency and no badge is above the law.
Lawfulness is determined by the courts, appeals courts and the Supreme Court, not by the Democrat Party or the Aurora Editorial Board who claim anything they disagree with as being “unlawful.” These parties decided after the election to do everything possible to resist the enactment of policies by the Trump administration. All one needs to do is examine the cases of Albrego-Garcia or Colorado’s Vizguerra to see their true motives. Both of these illegals have received due process and have standing orders for deportation. Yet the left is doing everything possible to stall or prevent their deportation. Many, if not most Americans would like to see all illegals deported and then decide who will be allowed back in legally.
A suggestion, “Kirk”: Read the Constitution, study some constitutional law, learn how this all works.
Then look at the record of lies and fancy footwork offered up by the Trump administration, over seen by an overgrown 2-year-old who hasn’t the remotest idea of what the law is and what it requires. This is a man who asked why we couldn’t just shoot immigrants in the legs. This is a man whose own lawyer called him a “f*cking liar”.
Read the court opinions handed down by Judge Boasberg in the Garcia case. They contain precisely what the Constitution requires in these cases. Of course, Trump has no idea what’s in the Constitution – he plainly has never read it. His actions show he feels no responsibility of fealty to it, even though he swore an oath to uphold it.
Learn what due process of law requires. Btw, it applies to everyone charged with a crime. Not just, you know, the ones Trump likes. You claim that they received due process, but you don’t seem to understand -at all – the law or the concept.
Mr. Ryan – Both individuals I named had the opportunity to present their cases in an immigration court before an immigration judge. They were both ordered deported. Unless I am mistaken, this is considered due process in our country. Part of the order was violated when Albrego-Garcia was sent to El Salvadore, so he was ordered returned. But the deportation orders remain.
Average citizens due not need to study and understand all aspects of Constitutional law, that is why we have specialists called judges and courts. We trust them to make decisions regarding the lawfulness of actions. You may remember that many of Joe Biden’s executive orders were also declared unlawful by the courts. All Presidents have tested the limits of their executive authority. This has been particularly evident today since there is a power vacuum due to paralysis of Congress.
“Due process” means a lot more than you seem aware of.
Fortunately, we have judges, courts and appellate courts to ensure compliance with the law. Unfortunately, we also have an executive branch manned by thugs. Among other things, Garcia was put on a plane to El Salvador in direct disobedience of a court order from District Court Judge Boasberg. This is not what is meant by “due process”. The correct term would be “contempt of court”.
If this is how the Trump administration “complies” with “due process”, no one is safe.
(This is all just a small part of the story. Do your own research.)
“They are doing so not out of ideology, but necessity”
LOL, this claim has no credibility.
“This is not conjecture nor partisan spin. State lawmakers”
Democrat state lawmakers. So it’s partisan.
“Trump promised voters that mass deportations would target “criminals.” That promise has collapsed under the weight of reality.”
If they are here illegally, they are, in fact, criminals. Just because Democrats think the US is an economic zone rather than a nation doesn’t change that fact.
“That statement should alarm anyone who believes in ordered liberty.”
Garcia and Perry believe in open borders, which is not “ordered liberty.”
“Critics of measures to hold the Trump administration within the boundaries of the law will cry “sanctuary cities” and “obstruction.”
Because that’s what it is, after four years of Democrats treating the nation’s border as non-existent.
“These measures are not radical. They are conservative in the truest sense”
LOL–“If I frame my magic spell in this particular way, that makes it so!” No, they are absolutely radical, since they work to prevent deportations of non-citizens from taking place. The kind of non-citizens who get let back in the country repeatedly and kill citizens.
“They are reminding the country that fear is not policy, and authoritarianism is not leadership.”
More leftist false dilemmas.
And more idiocy from you.
It’s not idiocy at all. It’s just a rejection of your moronic political theology.
More right wing wet dreams.
And more word games and diversion. I’ll say once again, you need to learn the legal concepts involved, because they have significant meaning.
I understand you long for the day when no undocumented immigrant is left in this country. The rest is immaterial to you. But we are talking about human beings, not faceless drones.
Say hey to Stephen Miller.
More left wing deflection.
And more fake framing. I’ll say once again, nothing you assert needs to be taken at face value.
I understand you long for the day when your moronic marxist utopia comes to fruition, but it’s never going to happen. That they are human beings is immaterial to the fact that they broke the law when they entered illegally.
Say hey to Tim Wise.