Immigration Legal Battle Sent Back to District Court
Trevor Phipps
The never-ending saga surrounding the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) lawsuit filed against the Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell has just added another chapter to the five-year long tale.
Only this time, the sheriff’s office encountered a major legal setback in its effort to cooperate with the feds in holding immigration detainees indefinitely at the jail in Divide, through an agreement with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency. But the case will again be headed back to the District Court.
Over the last five years, the lawsuit has bounced back and forth between courts. Since the suit was initially filed, a number of state laws have been passed regarding partnerships with ICE and the detainment of illegal immigrants.
To date, the district judge has thrown out the lawsuit two different times only to get an appeal in response.
But the case took a new turn on July 3, as the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled against District Court Judge Scott Sells’s earlier decision to dismiss the lawsuit and sent the case back to the District Court.
The District Court will now have to review the lawsuit and consider an injunction to discontinue the sheriff’s 287g agreement. This legal action is what the ACLU originally sought.
Judge Sells will now be residing over the case for the third time at some future date, which still hasn’t been set.
In the past, the judge has sided with the sheriff’s claim, in seeking to cooperate with ICE by having some deputies perform certain immigration duties, pertaining to inmates processed at the jail.
“If Plaintiffs prevail, the consequence would be a system where an inmate walks out of the Jail after posting bond, possibly being met by family members in the Jail parking lot and then being arrested by ICE officials,” Sells wrote in his previous decision. “Plaintiffs give no consideration of how their preferred procedure might affect the safety of the inmate, family, ICE officer, TCSO deputies or the public.”
However, the panel of three judges overseeing the case in the Court of Appeals disagreed. The judges contended that the sheriff must follow a state law that was passed in 2019 and not detain immigrants for civil detainer requests.
Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell had previously argued that his 287g agreement with ICE did not violate state law. He said that through the agreement his deputies act as federal immigration officers and there is no law that specifically prohibits the agreement.
The 287g agreement recently came up after a man was arrested near Woodland Park for attempting to break in to an occupied home. The sheriff’s deputies eventually arrested 40-year-old Edgar Saenz-Lopez on charges of burglary, resisting arrest and obstruction.
After his arrest, the deputies found out that the suspect had been arrested at least two other times in Colorado on similar charges and was on parole at the time of the incident. The deputies also learned that Saenz Lopez was in the country illegally and had previous charges out of Mexico.
According to Mikesell, the only way they figured out the suspect’s citizen status was through their 287g agreement with ICE. Since Teller County is the only county in the state with the ICE partnership, when Saenz Lopez was arrested in the two other counties that did not have the ability to contact ICE and realize he was in the country illegally.
Mikesell said that the 24-hour manhunt and crimes Saenz Lopez committed could have been prevented if other counties had the 287g agreement in place, and were able to contact ICE surrounding the suspect’s citizen status. The sheriff recently tried to push a state law that would allow all counties to work with federal immigration officers, but it was killed by state lawmakers.
ACLU Applauds Court’s Decision
Even though the recent decision may be bad news for the sheriff, the ACLU who sued on behalf of six Teller residents saw the decision as a huge victory. The plaintiffs now are confident that they will get their injunction and end the sheriff’s ICE partnership.
“We brought this case out of concern for the harm that the sheriff’s agreement inflicts on all Coloradans,” the ACLU of Colorado Legal Director Tim Macdonald said in a statement published the day the decision was made. “Local law enforcement officers have no business acting as federal immigration agents and keeping immigrants in jail — especially when state law expressly forbids them from doing so. The court’s ruling sends an important message that no Colorado sheriff is above the law.”
But for now, both parties are yet again playing the waiting game, anxiously anticipating the final outcome. The judge could again rule that the ACLU cannot stop the sheriff’s 287g agreement, but another appeal would likely follow.
Since there is no money attached to the lawsuit, the judge could rule in the favor of the ACLU and file an injunction. That would mean that the sheriff would have to terminate his partnership with ICE.
According to law enforcement officials, an injunction could prove to be bad news for the county in the long run since crime involving illegal immigrants has surged locally. The sheriff has argued in the past that the 287g agreement is needed now more than ever after more than 40,000 immigrants have arrived in Denver in the past year.
