ACLU and Immigrant Advocates Sue over ICE Arrests in Colorado
The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado (ACLU), along with immigrant advocates, has initiated a lawsuit against three officials from the Trump administration. This action, taken on Thursday, claims that federal immigration agents are violating the law by executing arrests of immigrants within Colorado.
Filed in the U.S. District Court in Colorado, the lawsuit names Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Acting Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Todd Lyons, and ICE Denver Field Office Director Robert Guardian as defendants.
The legal complaint highlights the stories of four immigrants detained by ICE in Colorado this year, illustrating a disregard for legal protocols. Under Title 8, United States Code, Section 1357, federal immigration officers are required to have probable cause to suspect that someone is illegally present in the U.S. and may flee before they can secure an arrest warrant.
The Hill has reached out to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and ICE for their perspectives on the lawsuit.
According to the latest data from ICE, officers in the Denver Field Office made 15,756 arrests across Wyoming and Colorado, with approximately 2,000 of those occurring in Colorado during the first half of the year, as noted in the complaint.
Representing individuals such as 43-year-old Refugio Ramirez Obando, 19-year-old Caroline Diaz Goncalves, 36-year-old JST, and 32-year-old GRR, the ACLU and its advocates emphasize that these four have lived in the U.S. for over a decade and were detained by ICE this year.
Ramirez was apprehended without a warrant in May, resulting in over three months in an ICE detention center in Aurora, Colorado, before it was recognized that he was mistakenly identified. Diaz, a university student, was stopped by ICE agents while driving in June and spent 15 days in the Aurora facility.
JST (pseudonym) was arrested in February at his apartment and remained at Aurora for four weeks. GRR (also a pseudonym), detained during an April raid on a nightclub in Colorado Springs, spent six weeks in detention.
The complaint argues that rather than adhering to immigration laws, ICE is “hastily filling arbitrary estimates established by the administration, causing chaos and fear in neighborhoods across Colorado.” It points out that roughly 169,000 undocumented immigrants and other Latinos in the area are now living in anxiety due to the random actions of federal immigration authorities.
In a statement from May, White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller mentioned that the administration aimed for ICE to perform 3,000 arrests daily.
The complaint concludes, “ICE’s arrest program is tearing families apart and terrorizing communities.”
