When she got a call from her husband, less than an hour after he left home for work, he told her he had been detained by ICE. She didn’t believe him. “I thought he was joking with me,” the wife said. “I told him to stop lying.” It was later that morning, after a trusted friend had checked the area and accompanied her to pick up his car a few blocks from their Rifle home, that it finally hit her. “I felt like he had died,” she said. “To see his truck and all his things abando

New public data from ICE offers a look at the scope of enforcement efforts in Colorado, including the Western Slope. While not perfect, this data provides our best available insight into the impact of these operations. The data comes from the Deportation Data Project at UC Berkeley School of Law, which obtained internal ICE records through public records litigation against the federal government. For the Western Slope, the data shows that at least 541 people with a connectio

He thought he hired an attorney. After Luis Armando Rivas was detained by ICE, he and his family made sacrifices to secure competent legal representation to fight his deportation in a very complex and biased immigration legal system. After considering several quotes from law firms, they landed on a local option, Hector Gonzalez with Connect Immigration, who was charging about half of what other attorneys were charging at the time. They signed a contract and started a monthly

In places like the Western Slope, immigration arrests are quietly increasing, usually with little media attention. The expansion of license plate readers is helping. Automated License Plate Reader technology allows police agencies, cities and private companies to set up cameras and automatically track passing cars, logging every license plate in a database. These camera systems claim to help law enforcement identify stolen vehicles, but they can also show where someone has be

For many of us on Colorado’s Western Slope, the struggle for farmworker dignity is deeply personal. My father was a farmworker when he first moved to this country, working as an undocumented laborer in the orchards around Hotchkiss and Delta in the 1970s. He worked in the fields of California as well, where I was born, not very far from the birthplace of America’s farmworkers movement. So when I see Colorado’s state legislature advancing a bill that undermines the dignity of

The Supreme Court heard arguments this week on whether a president can deny citizenship to children born in the United States based on their parents’ immigration status. The case centers on a Trump executive order that attempts to narrow who qualifies as American at birth. The Constitution is clear. The 14th Amendment guarantees citizenship to people born in the United States and subject to its jurisdiction. That has been settled law for more than a century. This challenge is

The mountains sell a story of clean air, fresh powder, luxury, and escape. Visitors come for the views, the skiing, the village lights, the Michelin-star meals, and the postcard version of Colorado. Ski resorts like Aspen, Snowmass, Vail, Breckenridge, Steamboat, Telluride, Winter Park, Copper Mountain, and others across Colorado all benefit from that image. What most visitors do not see are the workers holding it all together. The rooms do not clean themselves. The dishes d

On Tuesday, Voces Unidas testified before the Colorado House Judiciary Committee on two immigration bills, one day after 300 people came to the Capitol on Monday for Latino/a Advocacy Day to lobby lawmakers in support of those same measures. The two bills ended with the same vote count, but very different outcomes. HB26-1275 failed in committee on a 6-5 vote. HB26-1276 was amended and passed on a 6-5 vote. We are deeply disappointed that HB26-1275 failed. At a time when trust

The first day of Latino Advocacy Day brought more than 300 people together from across Colorado, including 100 youth, for the start of a three-day effort leading up to Monday’s formal day of action at the Capitol. Participants spent the day grounding themselves in the Colorado Latino Agenda and moving through issue briefings focused on housing justice, community safety, worker protections, environmental justice, and affordable healthcare. In the housing sessions, people dug i