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In Colorado, federal immigration agents had been showing up at courthouses and detaining people for being in the country without legal status. There's a state law against that, and now one Colorado judge has formally ordered federal agents to stop taking people into custody inside and near the courthouses. Colorado Public Radio's Allison Sherry reports.
ALLISON SHERRY, BYLINE: Judge John Neiley is the chief of Colorado's 9th Judicial District, encompassing three counties in the mountains west of the Continental Divide. The workforce here supporting touristy areas like Aspen is heavily Latino. Agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement have been in the county courthouse lately, perusing dockets and then detaining some of the defendants who show up for criminal proceedings unrelated to their immigration status. That's a problem, says local district attorney Ben Sollars.
BEN SOLLARS: We want to pursue justice on state-level cases. We want to protect witnesses, and victims and defendants to feel safe at the courthouse.
SHERRY: Defense attorney Claire Noone has witnessed some of the detentions.
CLAIRE NOONE: The level of mistrust will directly impact the health, safety and wellness of our community.
SHERRY: Colorado's 5-year-old law bans civil detentions in and even around the perimeters of courthouses. There are similar laws in other states, including Illinois and California. State Senator Julie Gonzales, who authored Colorado's law, is worried federal agents have not been following it.
JULIE GONZALES: If the federal government is willing to flout state law, to flout judges' orders in order to try to carry out their mass deportation tactics, the question for me becomes real simple - who's next?
SHERRY: Judge Neiley's order says that ICE detaining people for civil immigration violations, not crimes, causes, quote, "anxiety, fear and confusion in what is often already an emotionally charged environment." And, he says, it can have a chilling effect on the U.S. judicial system. Closer to Denver, Adams County District Attorney Brian Mason has had defendants deported while being tried in criminal cases. Some of them face serious charges. He says that is a miscarriage of justice.
BRIAN MASON: One, it means that any victim in the case does not see justice. Two, it completely undermines our ability to prosecute what may be a larger case.
SHERRY: Judge Neiley's order has been in place in the district for about two weeks. ICE has, at least so far, obeyed it. The agency declined to comment for this story. But President Trump's border czar, Tom Homan, has said previously that ICE likes taking people into custody in safe areas, and courthouses are inherently that, given everyone goes through security. In Trump's first term, ICE used to honor, quote, "safe spaces" with immigration enforcement, and that included courthouses. But the administration changed that policy in January. For NPR News, I'm Allison Sherry in Denver.
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