This story was first published at Colorado Newsline.
DENVER | A bill to add oversight to federal immigration enforcement in Colorado passed its first committee hearing at the state Legislature on Tuesday, while that same committee killed another bill that would have required local law enforcement officers to be identifiable and trained on the state’s immigration-related laws.
“Communities are questioning whether public safety systems are there to protect them or to harm them,” said Rep. Elizabeth Velasco, a Glenwood Springs Democrat sponsoring one of the bills. “I believe that we are at a time where we must end up against the Trump administration to protect our state.”
The pair of bills comes in the second year of the Trump administration’s mass deportation effort against immigrants who lack permanent legal status, resulting in skyrocketing numbers of arrests and detentions. That campaign includes targeted crackdowns in cities like Minneapolis and Portland, Oregon, which have seen multiple fatal shootings as immigration agents clash with protestors. A lawsuit in Colorado alleges that immigration officers are arresting people without warrants despite a court order barring them from doing so.
The Legislature is also considering a bill this year that would allow individuals to sue U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers over constitutional violations.
The bill that passed committee Tuesday, House Bill 26-1276, would require state agencies to publish the unsealed version of any subpoenas they get from federal immigration authorities, as well as notify a person when their information is being sought, after the subpoena is executed. Colorado law — strengthened through a bill last year — prohibits state and local employees from sharing personal identifying information with federal agencies like ICE and Customs and Border Protection, unless required by a court order, subpoena or other law.
“If your information is turned over because of a subpoena, you actually have a right to know,” bill sponsor Rep. Lorena Garcia, an Adams County Democrat, told lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee.
Rep. Cecelia Espenoza, a Denver Democrat and former immigration judge, said she worries about unintended consequences of publishing subpoenas. She joined Republicans in voting against the bill.
“My concern reading the bill as it was drafted is that it’s creating a vigilante opportunity for individuals,” she said. “The publication of that information on the website, that the subpoena has been issued, may encourage individuals to go track those individuals down who are listed.”
The bill would also extend the existing civil liability for employees who share information in violation of the law to the governmental agency they work for.
Last summer, a labor department employee sued Gov. Jared Polis over his intended compliance with an ICE subpoena purportedly related to a human trafficking investigation by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Additionally, the bill would ban the use of public resources like buses, trains and airports for the transportation of people detained by ICE. A recent report from the watchdog group Human Rights First found that 137 immigration enforcement flights departed from Denver in 2025 using Denver International Airport and Centennial Airport.
“If there is an airline that does engage with ICE to transport immigrants, they can go ahead and use a military base,” García said.
The bill would also allow at least four unannounced inspections of immigration detention facilities, such as a privately-operated ICE site in Aurora, per year to review its conditions. The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment would examine food safety standards, water quality, the level of care provided to people and the overall confinement conditions. The facility would be liable for a $50,000 fine and having their license revoked if it denies an inspection.
Advocates have warned of poor conditions inside the Aurora facility and have documented substandard food offerings and lax medical attention in a recent report that draws from the experiences of detained people.
“This bill does not solve every problem,” said Christopher Nurse, the political director of the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition. “No bill ever really does, but it promises something just as important — that we will not look away. We will gather the information, we will conduct the inspections, and when we find something wrong, there will be consequences.”
The bill would require law enforcement agencies to report their participation in multi-jurisdictional task forces that result in an immigration consequence, such as a detention or deportation. Members of law enforcement told lawmakers Tuesday that the bill’s reporting requirements are ambiguous and create risk of civil penalties for officers who are part of task forces that end up having immigration enforcement actions. Colorado law enforcement does not participate in immigration enforcement.
“There are a lot of times where there are criminal investigations that result in immigration violations and potentially deportations, either because it is discovered later or because it’s a part of a plea bargain,” said Todd Reeves, deputy chief of the Arvada Police Department. “This bill, the way it’s written, doesn’t differentiate between those two and doesn’t allow for the fact that a criminal investigation can parallel an immigration detention, and it still holds us accountable.”
He said the “complexities” of law enforcement will ultimately override the intent of that part of the bill.
HB-1276 passed on a 6-5 vote and it now heads to the House Finance Committee.
Law enforcement identification bill fails
Lawmakers on the committee voted against another bill, House Bill 26-1275, that would have prohibited Colorado law enforcement officers from concealing their name and agency while in the field. Supporters said it was crucial for community trust that Coloradans can distinguish between local law enforcement and the often masked, unidentifiable federal agents carrying out Trump’s immigration policies.
“Your neighbors, your fellow students, people sitting next to you, they’re begging for help,” Rep. Michael Carter, an Aurora Democrat, said. “They’re begging not to be afraid in their own city and not to be afraid of the police.”
The bill would have also created a duty to intervene for Colorado police officers if they witness ICE officers using excessive force. It would have let the Peace Officer Standards and Training — or POST — Board review a former ICE or CBP officer’s internal files if they wanted to work in Colorado. And it would have required standard training for officers on the state’s immigration laws.
A provision that would have prevented former immigration officers from working as law enforcement in Colorado was amended out during the committee hearing.
“Colorado already has some of the strongest police accountability laws in the nation, including mandatory reporting and intervention requirements for excessive force,” said Mark Reeves with the Colorado Association of Chiefs of Police. “Creating vague and associated statutes only creates confusion over standards that already exist.”
Espenoza and Rep. Chad Clifford joined Republicans in defeating the bill. Clifford said most of the testimony in favor of the bill centered on the behavior of ICE officers, which the bill doesn’t affect. Instead of making a difference on that issue, he said the bill would create additional burdens for agencies.
“What we really want to do here is have a say over how federal agents function in our jurisdictions, and we’re going to have to figure out a way to focus on what it looks like when they operate outside the color of their authority,” he said.
Espenoza said she worries people would misinterpret the intent of the bill.
“Regardless of how transparent you are, they think somehow this bill will help us identify the rogue ICE agents,” she said. “It cannot. My first priority is always to do no harm to the immigrant community by misleading them to think they have protection that they don’t.”
This story was made available via the Colorado News Collaborative. Learn more at https://www.google.com/url?q=https://colabnews.co&source=gmail-imap&ust=1774553113000000&usg=AOvVaw2o1CG7wgxeu5-EOPBSBPtK
Well look at that–waving the flag of the country that has their real loyalty.