Gov. Jared Polis and Denver’s city attorney defended state and local policies restricting cooperation with civil immigration enforcement in letters to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi this week, defying Trump administration demands that those limits be rescinded.
The letters, both sent Tuesday, responded to a Bondi letter from last week that told the state and its capital city that they had a week to detail how they would repeal laws that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Bondi, who sent identical letters to officials in other “sanctuary jurisdictions,” wrote that local leaders who didn’t cooperate “may be subject to criminal charges.”
Polis denied that Colorado fit the definition of a sanctuary state and asked Bondi to remove the state from the U.S. Department of Justice’s recent list describing it as such.
But he defended the constitutionality of state laws that limit government employees’ cooperation with immigration enforcement, except as part of a criminal investigation or as required by a judge.
“Colorado, like many states, will not allow the federal government to commandeer our public safety resources, and our right to do so is protected by the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution,” Polis wrote. “We do not find any conflict between state and federal law in this matter, in fact our state laws require compliance with valid federal laws.”
The 10th Amendment establishes the limits of the federal government’s powers.
In a separate letter, Denver’s acting city attorney, Katie McLoughlin, told Bondi that Denver’s “welcoming city” ordinance — which similarly limits information- and resource-sharing with federal immigration authorities — was legal.
“We have no intention of changing the ordinance or our practices as we are committed to continuing to comply with the law,” she wrote.
Courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, have generally upheld states’ ability to prevent the federal government from commandeering state resources, according to the National Immigration Forum and the American Immigration Council.
The Trump administration’s Justice Department is now challenging those rulings. The agency has sued Denver and Colorado, along with several other cities and states, over their immigration policies.
A judge in Illinois has already rejected Bondi’s lawsuit against that state and the city of Chicago, ruling that the suit was “an end-run around the Tenth Amendment.” The suit against Colorado and Denver is still active.
In a statement, Polis spokeswoman Ally Sullivan said Tuesday that Polis was “frustrated by this mistaken and incorrect (sanctuary jurisdiction) label and the lack of transparency from the federal administration on this and many other items.”
“In Colorado, we are improving public safety, apprehending dangerous criminals, cooperating with federal law enforcement on criminal investigations, and keeping our communities safe,” Sullivan wrote. “The Governor encourages the federal administration — and Congress — to focus on actually securing the border, decreasing violent crime, increasing transparency, and passing real immigration reform.”
Denver city spokesman Jon Ewing struck a more defiant tone.
“Denver is not going to be bullied,” he wrote in a statement. “Not by the Trump administration, not by anyone. We have always followed the law and will continue fighting to protect the rights of our residents as well as the federal funding they are entitled to as taxpayers.”
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