Immigration Reform: Cooperation With ICE Is Focus Of 2 New Bills

ACROSS COLORADO – By Alex Burness for The Colorado Independent. Gov. Jared Polis, who ardently supported immigrants’ rights as both a philanthropist and Congress member, may be the biggest obstacle to immigration reform measures this session.

Immigrant rights groups and Democratic lawmakers — who now control both chambers of the legislature — are hoping to pass two bills aimed at limiting the extent to which government agencies and law enforcers in Colorado can cooperate with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

One of those bills, introduced in the House in January by Rep. Adrienne Benavidez, would ban state and local officials from using public funds or resources to help enforce federal civil immigration laws. Such cooperation has been playing out in Colorado. Teller County, for example, authorized sheriff’s deputies to detain people whose immigration status is in question. The ACLU sued Teller over that practice, and the two sides settled last week.

The other measure — expected soon to be introduced in the House by Rep. Susan Lontine — would enable undocumented Coloradans to contact fire and law enforcement officials without fear that doing so will get them detained or deported. That bill, which is similar but not a carbon copy of a measure postponed last year, is known as Virginia’s Law, named after a woman named Virginia Mancinas who years ago called 9-1-1 in western Colorado to report that her husband was assaulting her, only to then be interviewed and detained by ICE.

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