It doesn’t have to be this hard.
Some state and city lawmakers are either agonizing or just outright resisting efforts to hold federal immigration agents accountable when they violate the law and the Constitution.
As you read this, there is a smattering of state legislative bills focusing on protecting Colorado residents in the aftermath of the Trump administration’s ICE debacle in Minnesota.
Senate Bill 26-005, whose prime sponsor is Aurora Democratic state Sen. Mike Weissman, would help anyone in Colorado whose civil rights are violated by federal agents to recoup damages from offending federal agents upon winning their claims in a federal district court.
If the measure passes, the bill would clarify what’s already reality: Federal agents are not immune to federal laws. If an ICE agent attacks and injures a lawful protester here in Aurora, he or she would be liable for the injuries as well as personally liable for having violated the protester’s right to peaceably protest.
Same thing for documented or undocumented immigrants. If a Trump administration ICE agent attacks and injures an immigrant, that agent would not be immune from being prosecuted for their actions.
The concept is not hard to understand nor is it objectionable.
The Supreme Court has on more than one instance established that anyone in the United States, citizen or not, enjoys Constitutional protections, especially when it comes to due process, free speech and equal protection issues.
It really is the law of the land. All of the land.
And the idea that federal agents, or any agents, or anyone is above the law or immune to it is absurd and deeply offensive to the philosophy of the American government.
Local police, right here in Aurora and everywhere, are accountable for their actions as police officers. Just ask the former Aurora police officer imprisoned after being convicted of killing unarmed Black resident Elijah McClain.
There is no logical reason to think, unless you get your information from Fox News or Trump’s boom scroll, that federal police should be held to a lesser standard, especially Trump’s “Operation Aurora” goon squads of incompetent, poorly trained and questionably hired ICE agents.
Even more to the point, House Bill 26-1275, also sponsored by two Aurora lawmakers, Weissman and Democratic state Sen. Iman Jodeh, would forbid federal or local police from wearing masks to conceal their identity, or not wear identifiable uniforms or other gear to make clear they are, indeed, local or federal police.
The bill compels local police to uphold that law against any offenders, including Trump’s ICE squads.
Each year, while the Legislature is in session, city lawmakers consider the hundreds of bills floating around the state Capitol and decide which to give a thumbs up, or a thumbs down, or a thumb of nose.
You won’t be surprised to hear that Aurora Team Blue liberal council members, who have been critical of the mess made by ICE agents in Minnesota, and even here in Aurora, are pretty enthused about these and similar Colorado legislative measures.
Council Trumpers and never-liberals? Not so much.
But being at least cogent enough to understand, especially after the last city election, that the vast majority of Aurora residents are either minorities, immigrants, children of immigrants or supporters of immigrants, outright invocations of “lock them up” have subsided on the council dais.
But what Team Red has said from the dais and in council committee meetings recently is that city support of these and similar bills is nothing but “posturing” and “political theater.”
Their complaint is that these are not “local” issues, but federal and kinda sorta state problems.
Set aside, for a moment, that some of these same “oh please” naysayers were mightily charged and even sponsors of an October 2024 city council resolution condemning the Oct. 12 Hamas attack on Israel. The proposal drew hundreds of passionate residents from both sides of that issue to rock council chambers for hours.
Clearly, some political theater is not equal to others.
The ICE problem, however, affects all of us, not just some local residents who are direct victims of congressional malfeasance and racist corruption rampant among the Trump administration.
For the yawners on city council who see this as “whatever,” realize that if these bills pass, Aurora police could, and would, be directed to include federal agents when enforcing the law. Got a mask on, Officer ICE C.U. while you’re shoving protesters on the sidewalk? That’s assault, menacing and impersonating a police officer. You’re under arrest.
For real, folks.
That’s not political theater. It’s accountability for Aurora.
Can you even imagine if a different administration were to take the wheel of the nation, and through bigly populist efforts insist that wealthy tax dodgers are an imminent and harrowing threat to this nation? Why, it might not be hard for some to see that such deadbeats, cheating the national til, undermine the wellbeing of the U.S. military, are creating a national security risk.
Yup, yup, yup.
Better mask up the IRS and send them out to round up the un-American 1040 and 1120 criminals. Due process? Tell it to the judge from your clogged-toilet-cell at the new GEO IRS Detention facility in Highlands Ranch.
I’m pretty sure backing state bills keeping the IRS in court and not armed and masked at the Cherry Creek Country Club wouldn’t be political theater.
This isn’t them vs us. Them is us, folks. And we need to stick together, not as a matter of politics, but as an element of who we all are and what for 250 years that’s stood for. We’re Americans and must treat all of us the same.
Follow @EditorDavePerry on BlueSky, Threads, Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook or reach him at 303-750-7555 or dperry@SentinelColorado.com
These bills have about as much chance of being enforced as my passing an executive order that I am no longer subject to property taxes.
Conditions are here for classism, although poor white people with racist assumptions are being unwittingly used by Trump to further his ends. Individual freedom used to be something the GOP seemed to stand for, but today, if you are brown, you’re out. Selection of white wealthy Americans is as open as a book under Trump. And so many old white people, like me, are letting Trump do his evil best to make sure poor people don’t have a voice. Ee must corral these Storm Troopers he’s sending into cities and we must say NO the the GOP in November for being complicit in helping Trump destroy norms! This is not nornal. None of this would be acceptable if the GOP did it’s job and defend the Constitution when they have the majority!
Again more heavily biased, unverified, one-sided, opinionated statements from the editor to promote a leftist political agenda. What the editor conveniently leaves out of his editorial are the physical attacks by protestors to ICE agents. This is not a peaceful constitutional right to protest that I fully support. Any references to protestors being manhandled by ICE were not peaceful protesting. They were unlawful attacks and interference on government employees attempting to fulfill their lawful duties. Nothing, as well, is stated about the thousands of grossly criminal illegals (rapists, murderers, traffickers, child molestors) that are being taken off of our streets by ICE to make our neighborhoods safer. I was astounded that the Sentinel was given an award for providing unbiased news. With an editor as biased as this editorial clearly proves, how can this paper be unbiased? Never stop asking why or questioning and challenging our news sources. Is this news or political grandstanding? You can decide this for yourself. Please do some of your own research.
Hilarious how Dave ends this yapping screed with another neo-maoist “unity-criticism-unity” tactic. It’s absolutely us versus you, Dave, and I highly encourage you and your team to keep escalating.