When federal immigration officers arrested Rigoberto Carranza-Mendez in Colorado last month, they trumpeted his detention and subsequent deportation to Mexico on social media — and used the opportunity to take a shot at the state’s capital city.
The convicted murderer had found nearly “perfect sanctuary” in Denver, Immigration and Customs Enforcement claimed, “until ICE officers found him.”
But Carranza-Mendez wasn’t arrested on the streets of Denver, and ICE officers didn’t exactly find him. On July 16, Carranza-Mendez was due to be released from a state prison. The week before that, state corrections officials had emailed ICE, informing the agency of his release date and setting up a custody transfer at a facility in Cañon City.
Carranza-Mendez was one of two men arrested by ICE last month directly from a state prison during a large-scale roundup in Colorado of immigrants without proper legal status. They are among 77 arrested that way this year, according to the state Department of Corrections, under a prior policy of notifying the agency of a certain offender’s imminent release.
But earlier this month, Colorado’s top prison official directed DOC staff members to stop proactively responding to detainer requests from immigration authorities. Under the department’s new policy, ICE must file public records requests to obtain information about inmates. The new directive was signed Aug. 1, shortly after The Denver Post asked about the two men’s arrests.
Carranza-Mendez and Nicolas Diaz-Hernandez were each arrested on their release dates more than three weeks ago. They were part of a broader ICE operation that, the agency said, was conducted in the Denver area and resulted in at least 243 arrests.
ICE had previously sent detainer forms — effectively a request to hold someone until ICE can arrest them — for both men.
The agency’s Denver-based spokesman, Steve Kotecki, did not return an email seeking comment.
The Department of Corrections’ new limitations on ICE cooperation come amid heightened scrutiny of state and local officials’ relationships with federal immigration authorities as President Donald Trump pushes for mass deportations.
A state employee sued Gov. Jared Polis in June over the state’s intent to comply with an ICE subpoena in violation of a state law limiting such collaboration. More recently, Attorney General Phil Weiser filed suit against a Mesa County sheriff’s deputy for tipping off ICE about a University of Utah student from Brazil who was driving through the state.
Among other limitations, Colorado law generally prohibits state and local officials from delaying a person’s release from jail or prison to comply with an ICE detainer.
State Corrections spokeswoman Alondra Gonzalez-Garcia said the men recently arrested by ICE did not have their release dates changed to accommodate the agency. An immigration lawyer told The Post that the department’s prior policy didn’t appear to violate state law.
New limit on information sharing
When The Post first asked about the department’s interactions with ICE last month, following ICE’s announcement of the large arrest operation, Gonzalez-Garcia said that the agency hadn’t shared any information with immigration authorities, who acted “independently.”
On Aug. 1, a week later, the department reversed course and said it had informed ICE about the men’s release dates and coordinated their transfers to ICE custody, under an agency policy.
That same day, Andre Stancil, the Department of Corrections’ executive director, issued a directive to all department staff, blocking employees from proactively sharing information with ICE unless its agents submit a public records request.
Gonzalez-Garcia declined The Post’s request to interview DOC leaders.
“The executive directive from Executive Director Stancil clarifies and standardizes how DOC responds to ICE requests,” she said in an email. “This directive ensures that ICE may obtain information regarding releases by submitting open records requests, to which appropriate responses are promptly provided.”
The department’s earlier policy of notifying ICE in response to a detainer doesn’t appear to have violated state law, said Violeta Chapin, an immigration lawyer and University of Colorado Law School professor.
But immigration activists accused the agency of sidestepping those restrictions. The Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition accused the department of “creating an active deportation pipeline.”
“These are not isolated incidents but part of a troubling pattern of state and local officials bypassing Colorado’s laws,” Karen Orona, a spokeswoman for the coalition, said in a statement.
In response to the state employee’s June lawsuit against the governor, a Denver judge told Polis that complying with one ICE subpoena would violate state law. Polis’ administration also acknowledged last month that it had complied with four other ICE subpoenas this year — including one that a spokeswoman said it shouldn’t have, prompting changes to state processes.
The incidents have had ripple effects. After Weiser went after the deputy for his actions before the Utah student’s arrest, Mesa County’s commissioners last week signaled their intent to counter-sue Weiser.
Weiser’s office is now investigating other agencies that were participants in a shared group chat with the sheriff’s deputy and federal immigration agents. His office declined to identify the other agencies, other than to point The Post to legal filings that list the Colorado State Patrol, the Vail Police Department and the Eagle County Sheriff’s Office as other participants in the chat.
Sgt. Ivan Alvarado, a State Patrol spokesman, said in a statement that the agency reevaluated its presence in the group chat after the student’s arrest and stopped sharing information in the thread on June 18. He said the patrol respects Weiser’s “ongoing administrative review.”
Vail Police Chief Ryan Kenney wrote in an email to The Post that he couldn’t comment on the AG’s investigation. But he said he was confident that, at the investigation’s conclusion, “no wrongdoing will be found on the part of any Vail police officers.” Ashley LaFleur, an Eagle County spokeswoman, said Weiser’s review was a “matter of administrative due diligence” and that, like Kenney, the county’s officials were confident that its personnel would be cleared of any wrongdoing.
Pressure to protect ‘from federal overreach’
As for Polis, 19 of the state Senate’s 23 Democrats — including Senate President James Coleman and the caucus’ leadership — sent the governor a letter last month about ICE cooperation.
The lawmakers asked Polis to “provide clarity to our state and our constituents about how you will protect them from federal overreach,” like the “fishing expedition” subpoena that Polis had sought to comply with until directed otherwise by a judge.
Polis’ office, which is still contesting the lawsuit, had not responded to the letter as of Friday afternoon. In a statement to The Post, Polis spokeswoman Shelby Wieman said the governor “agrees that Coloradans’ personal information should be protected from unwarranted violations by the federal government,” but he supports “apprehending criminals regardless of immigration status.”
“He is open to further dialogue with the General Assembly on what he views as the shared objectives of keeping communities safe and not supporting the targeting of innocent law-abiding individuals, separating families, or diverting local and state law enforcement from fighting crime to instead pursue federal priorities,” Wieman wrote.
The subpoena at the center of the lawsuit was sent to the state in April as part of what Polis’ office claimed was a criminal investigation, which would’ve qualified for information-sharing with ICE under state law. But Denver Judge A. Bruce Jones said the subpoena wasn’t part of a criminal matter and that Polis’ office had done little to confirm that such an investigation existed.
As part of the fallout from that suit, legislators sent letters to Weiser, Secretary of State Jena Griswold, Treasurer Dave Young and the State Board of Education. They sought assurances about how those agencies would interact with federal immigration authorities, said Rep. Lorena Garcia and Sen. Julie Gonzales, Democrats who’ve sponsored legislation limiting immigration cooperation.
In its response, Weiser’s office wrote that it would take steps to ensure that any subpoena purporting to be part of a criminal investigation was actually part of such an inquiry — “as opposed to a veiled or mis-labeled enforcement action for which the true purpose is immigration enforcement.”
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