ACLU Appeals Ruling That Teller County Sheriff Partnership With ICE Is Lawful

By Lindsey Toomer, Colorado Newsline

April 11, 2023

The American Civil Liberties of Colorado appealed a district court ruling that Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell did not violate Colorado law by participating in an agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The initial complaint from the ACLU argues that Mikesell’s “287(g) agreement” with ICE violates both Colorado statute and the Colorado Constitution. The Teller County agreement allows deputies in the sheriff’s department to make immigration-related arrests for ICE after undergoing a four-week immigration law training.

Mikesell’s agreement with ICE is the last one still in place in Colorado. A Colorado statute from 2019 prohibits local law enforcement from detaining people on the basis of ICE documents without a judge’s signature.

ACLU of Colorado lawyers are representing five Teller County taxpayers as the plaintiffs who oppose their tax dollars being used for this purpose. Attorneys for Mikesell argued that the deputies who were trained to enforce immigration law are de facto federal officers and therefore are acting within Colorado law.

Annie Kurtz, an attorney with the ACLU working on the case, said the district court trial was unique in that the two sides agreed to the basic facts of the case — the only disagreement was over whether or not the program is legal. Because of this, the ACLU initially took the position that a trial wasn’t necessary because there were no facts to dispute.

“We feel strongly that the lower court got the law wrong here given the facts that we all agree on,” Kurtz said. “We think that what’s happening at the Teller County Jail violates the Colorado Constitution, violates Colorado statutes and exceeds the sheriff’s authority under state law, and we think the Court of Appeals will agree with us.”

Kurtz said the ACLU team argued that holding people to be transferred to an ICE facility without any kind of judicial warrant is unlawful because of the 2019 Colorado statute.

“Indeed, there are three people who we know were booked into the Teller County jail on local charges and resolved their criminal cases by posting bond,” Kurtz said. “But although the jail took their money, it didn’t allow them to leave, so those folks remained imprisoned in the jail and were eventually transferred to an ICE detention facility.”

The argument that the Teller County deputies are “de facto federal officers” isn’t answering the right question in the case, Kurtz said. She said the section of the Federal Immigration Nationality Act that authorizes 287(g) programs says that local officers can perform functions of federal immigration officers only “to the extent consistent with state and local law,” and Colorado law prohibits this.

"There won’t be a new trial for the Colorado Court of Appeals, rather the court will go through the transcript and records from the original trial and reassess the legal questions," Kurtz said.

It’s hard to predict when the court will release its final decision, but Kurtz said the ACLU team won’t be presenting any new evidence. Now that they filed the appeal, the plaintiffs will need to prepare an opening brief for the Court of Appeals over the next few months after it works through the logistics of moving the case up to the higher court.

If the Court of Appeals reverses the Teller County District Court ruling, it would end Mikesell’s 287(g) agreement with ICE.

Democracy functions only when people have access to reliable information about government and society. Colorado Newsline’s mission is to be a trusted source of such information. Newsline is nonprofit, nonpartisan and independent, and it provides fair and accurate reporting on politics, policy and other stories of interest to Colorado readers.