Colorado must stand against Trump’s unchecked ICE force

Truth, we have learned, is short-lived. Facts can be fleeting. Reality is easily distorted.

This is the world in which we live, the nation where the president threatens “the day of reckoning and retribution” and then proclaims innocence when it arrives with deadly certainty. Twice.

Still, we have our own eyes. And the cameras are everywhere. So we know better than to believe that Alex Pretti, the man murdered by federal agents in the streets of Minneapolis last month, was a “would-be assassin” or a “domestic terrorist,” as members of the Trump administration proclaimed. We recognize when the line has been crossed by our own government, when the trust that glues our society together has been broken.

We watched as Pretti, and Renée Good just five days before, were gunned down by U.S. Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, then smeared by the administration before any investigation was ever conducted. Truth be told, Pretti and Good are only the most recent to suffer from this tyrannical rampage in the name of “homeland security.”

Shots have been fired at people protesting Department of Homeland Security operations at least 16 times since July, and those are just the cases on record. At least 10 people have been struck by bullets, including four U.S. citizens. Three have been killed. And each time, Trump aides declared the actions justified before investigations were completed.

None of the federal officers have faced criminal charges for any of the shootings, nor has the administration announced any internal disciplinary measures. Even the attempts by local authorities to conduct independent investigations have been blocked by federal officials.

Conversely, the Trump administration asserts that local law enforcement in Colorado and other “sanctuary” states must aid federal agents in their immigration roundup efforts. To that end, emboldened conservatives at the Advance Colorado Institute have gone so far as to certify a ballot initiative asking Colorado voters this November to mandate police coordination with federal immigration agents.

But again, the facts fail to align with the proponents’ version of reality. We have already witnessed how quickly the promise of targeting the “worst of the worst” turns to simply reaching to meet unrealistic deportation quotas. And with an annual budget bigger than the military budgets of Israel, Italy and Brazil (among others), there is little standing in the way of Trump’s ICE army at the moment.

Independent research cited in the Wall Street Journal shows that 73% of those taken into ICE custody since October had no criminal conviction, and only 5% had a violent criminal conviction. According to an internal Department of Homeland Security document obtained by CBS News, less than 14% of nearly 400,000 immigrants arrested by ICE in Trump’s first year back in office even faced charges for violent crimes. And a new study by researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder and the University of California at Berkeley shows that the percentage of arrested individuals with criminal convictions actually dropped from about 50% before Trump took office in January 2025 to below 30% by late 2025.

Yet, armed and masked agents continue to violently terrorize the nation without oversight.

We have seen the chaos of the current administration’s so-called immigration reform policy across the country, including here in Colorado — where people are being profiled, abducted by ICE, detained, intimidated with racist “death cards,” and, in the case of Delvin Francisco Rodriguez, dying in custody with no reasonable explanation. ICE agents ignore the Constitution as they insist they no longer need judicial warrants to enter a home or business.

This is not about public safety. It is about fear and control through a private military force being used at Trump’s discretion.

To make matters worse, these federal agents are quickly erasing the distinction between police work and military operations, further eroding the public trust. Whether it’s ICE agents posing as police officers or local police officers working with federal agents, it’s public safety that ultimately suffers most. When we don’t trust that our local police are there to protect us, no one will call for help.

Perhaps it’s no surprise then that 62% of U.S. adults said ICE’s actions are going too far in a recent national poll.

Data from our annual Colorado Latino Agenda polling of more than 1,500 Latinos statewide provides additional insight. In 2025, 84% of Latinos in Colorado said they believe all law enforcement operating in the state should always identify themselves, wear body cameras, drive clearly marked vehicles and treat everyone with dignity and respect, and 55% said ICE agents should not be allowed to hide their faces behind masks. More than half (54%) distrust that their local police will not collaborate or share data with ICE, and 65% oppose local law enforcement working or collaborating with ICE without a judicial order.

Nearly a third (28%) believe immigration enforcement in the area is mostly targeting people they think look like immigrants, including Latinos who are U.S. citizens. That’s twice as many as those who believe immigration enforcement is targeting people who commit serious crimes (14%). The erosion of trust is obvious.

As this tragedy continues to play out on the national stage, it’s essential that Colorado does everything in its power to protect our residents. We appreciate that our state legislature is standing up to the threats of the Trump administration by not only passing a Colorado Senate resolutionsupporting immigrants and transparency in federal immigration enforcement, but also introducing important bills aiming to establish new protections against enforcement and govern how local law enforcement interacts with federal authorities.

State Senate Bill 5, introduced on day one of the current state legislative session, would allow people injured in immigration enforcement actions to sue federal agents if they violate the U.S. Constitution. Another bill planned for introduction this month would require state law enforcement officers to clearly identify themselves, prevent them from wearing masks, keep anyone who worked for ICE from becoming certified law enforcement officers in Colorado and underscore that federal agents who break state law can be arrested.

A third bill would tighten the state’s limitations on local officials sharing information with federal immigration authorities, increase transparency when the state receives subpoenas from immigration authorities and expand oversight of ICE detention centers in the state.

It’s not a matter of if, but when Trump’s retribution takes aim at Colorado, so it’s critical to provide people the protections we can as a state. Our legislature — and eventually state voters — have an opportunity to restore trust by establishing these protections against draconian and disruptive immigration enforcement. We urge them to do so now, before the reckoning becomes our reality.

Alex Sánchez is the founder and CEO of Voces Unidas Action Fund, an immigrant-created advocacy organization based on Colorado’s Western Slope.