Douglas County plans to launch a authorized problem of current state legal guidelines that bar native regulation enforcement in Colorado from carefully cooperating with federal immigration officers on the detention and incarceration of immigrants.
Leaders of the conservative south metro county have characterised the authorized problem and a proposed ordinance geared toward stopping the busing of migrants to its communities as their response to the continued disaster on the U.S.-Mexico border. One commissioner acknowledged that “our first duty is to our residents who’re already right here legally.”
Douglas County’s measures, which the commissioners voted on Tuesday, come as nearly 40,000 migrants have arrived in Denver over the past 15 months. The arrivals have strained metropolis sources and prompted different Entrance Vary communities — together with Aurora and El Paso County — to warn town to not ship migrants their manner.
In Lakewood, the prospect of migrants flooding the suburb from Denver packed a room final month with lots of of residents who insisted their metropolis wasn’t outfitted to deal with such an inflow. Denver has not attempted to maneuver migrants to Lakewood.
“We have now a whole lot of involved residents right here on this,” Douglas County Commissioner George Teal mentioned Thursday. “It has reached a boiling level.”
On Tuesday, the commissioners superior an ordinance that might prohibit industrial autos from dropping off individuals within the county unannounced — a response to the busloads of migrants which have rolled into Denver from U.S. cities close to the southern border for greater than yr.
A bus driver in violation of the order could possibly be cited and the bus seized, according to the ordinance. That measure nonetheless wants a second vote on March 26 to grow to be regulation.
North of metro Denver, a gaggle of fifty or so residents gathered Wednesday night with Weld County elected officers, together with the sheriff, at a city corridor to debate whether or not the county ought to declare itself a non-sanctuary county, as Douglas and El Paso counties have performed.
An effort by Commissioner Lori Saine to introduce simply such a decision was narrowly voted down by her fellow commissioners earlier this month, in accordance with The Greeley Tribune.
“We need to be sure we aren’t giving taxpayer {dollars} to funding illegals,” mentioned Natalee Tennant, a Weld County resident who just lately based the group Never Surrender National and arranged Wednesday’s city corridor. “That cash wants to come back again to authorized residents — our homeless, our veterans.”
Raquel Lane-Arellano, communications supervisor for the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, mentioned immigrant advocates had been “alarmed and anxious” by what is going on in some Colorado communities relating to managing the migrant stream.
“When regulation enforcement works with (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement), it creates a whole lot of concern in our immigrant communities,” she mentioned. “It sends a chilling message to all immigrants in our neighborhood.”
That’s why state lawmakers passed a law limiting that cooperation 5 years in the past, Lane-Arellano mentioned. The regulation prohibits police and sheriff deputies from holding undocumented immigrants solely in response to detainer requests from ICE. A bill passed last year additional prevents state and native governments from coming into or renewing any contracts with federal immigration authorities to carry individuals suspected of civil immigration violations.
“It’s a primary worth of our nation to supply refuge to these fleeing hardship,” she mentioned. “Immigration is so heightened in a political second like this.”
As migrant crossings have hit record levels below the Biden administration — fueled by federal laws that enable many asylum seekers to remain in the US whereas they await a courtroom listening to — Douglas County wouldn’t be the primary neighborhood to aim to discourage bus drivers from dropping off giant numbers of immigrants.
On the finish of final yr, Grundy County outdoors Chicago installed two digital billboards on Interstate 55 warning bus drivers to not off-load migrants within the county.
Nearer to Denver, the Aurora Metropolis Council handed a decision final month stating that Colorado’s third most populous metropolis, the place 1 in 5 residents is overseas born, had no plans to soak up or present companies for migrants dropped at town from different municipalities.
Teal mentioned the state legal guidelines that Douglas County plans to problem mark an overreach by state authorities and trample on Douglas County’s responsibility to “present for the well being, welfare and security” of its residents.
The 2019 regulation, particularly, was handed by a Democrat-controlled legislature intent on snubbing then-President Donald Trump’s hardline federal immigration insurance policies, he mentioned.
“The assertion we’re making is that these legal guidelines, handed as a stunt by the state legislature, prohibit native regulation enforcement from doing their job,” Teal mentioned.
Douglas County intends to file its lawsuit in opposition to the state within the subsequent few weeks.
Lane-Arellano, with the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, mentioned the issue can be much less extreme if different communities within the state supplied to lend Denver a hand.
“If the burden was extra equally distributed, extra communities may present help that feels extra sustainable,” she mentioned.
Keep up-to-date with Colorado Politics by signing up for our weekly publication, The Spot.
