Denver’s top ICE official says he was reassigned to Virginia

Denver’s high immigration enforcement official mentioned he was reassigned to Virginia efficient earlier this week, amid a broader shakeup among the many ranks of the federal company tasked with arresting and deporting hundreds of thousands of immigrants with out authorized standing.

Robert Guadian, the now-former head of the Denver discipline workplace for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, confirmed Thursday, whereas testifying remotely in federal courtroom as a part of a lawsuit alleging that ICE has performed waves of warrantless and unlawful arrests within the state, that he has been relieved of his duties in Colorado. He mentioned he had been reassigned to the ICE’s field office in Virginia, which additionally oversees Washington, and that his reassignment turned efficient final Sunday.

Guadian, who took over Denver’s federal immigration enforcement operations shortly earlier than President Donald Trump took workplace, didn’t present a cause for his reassignment. He’s amongst a dozen ICE discipline administrators to be reshuffled by the Trump administration and the U.S. Division of Homeland Safety this week.

All of these officers shall be changed by different ICE personnel or by Customs and Border Safety officers, sources instructed The Related Press. The installment of Border Patrol officers doubtless signifies a larger integration of that company into ICE at a time when the patrol has been accused of utilizing heavy-handed ways in its immigration enforcement elsewhere within the U.S.

Guadian’s confirmed departure got here as he defended ICE’s embattled ways in Colorado. A bunch of regulation corporations, together with the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, sued the company in October, arguing that ICE more and more has arrested and detained undocumented immigrants with out possible trigger to take action. Federal immigration authorities have surged arrests in current months and have moved to maintain immigrants detained, which, attorneys have argued, is a part of a broader effort to extend deportations.

On Thursday, the regulation corporations started a listening to wherein they requested a decide to declare ICE’s practices to be illegal and to order the company to ascertain that arrestees symbolize a flight threat earlier than they’re detained indefinitely.

4 former detainees, together with a College of Utah scholar whose June arrest triggered a state investigation, testified in courtroom Thursday, on both facet of Guadian’s testimony. All 4 mentioned ICE officers arrested them and despatched them to Aurora’s detention heart with out first figuring out if such remedy was crucial to make sure they didn’t flee the state. All 4 mentioned their lives have been upended by their detentions, which ranged from a number of weeks to greater than three months.

Refugio Ramirez Ovando, a Grand Junction father who has been within the U.S. for 20 years, wept a lot when requested concerning the hardship his household suffered throughout his detention that U.S. District Decide R. Brooke Jackson referred to as a quick recess. Ramirez was arrested on the best way to work in Could. Though ICE brokers instructed him he wasn’t the person they have been searching for, he nonetheless was despatched to Aurora. He mentioned his 4 youngsters obtained psychological well being diagnoses on account of the stress attributable to his arrest.

“I’m the one breadwinner,” Ramirez testified by way of an interpreter. “My spouse doesn’t work, so I’m the one one who offers for the household. We had financial savings, however because of the authorized points, we needed to borrow cash. After which all the cash we had saved ran out. And we had a truck, however we needed to promote that so my household had one thing to stay on.”