FILE – Law officials spread out through an apartment complex during a raid, Feb. 5, 2025, in east Denver (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File).
ICE agents in Colorado have been "flipping the bird" at a federal judge's order barring warrantless arrests without assessing flight risk first as they continue to rip "parents and families" out of cars and off local streets to deport them, immigration lawyers say.
"Even following this court's entry of a preliminary injunction on Nov. 25, 2025 — which prohibited ICE from engaging in warrantless arrests without the required flight risk analysis and required ICE to document the particularized facts giving rise to probable cause that someone is a flight risk — defendants have persisted in their unlawful practice, flouting both federal law and the directives of this court," an amended complaint filed last week alleges. "Permanent class-wide injunctive relief is necessary to protect Coloradans from defendants' disregard for the limits of their authority," the complaint says.
Lawyers with the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, East Colfax Community Collective, and two Denver law firms have identified at least 58 forms filled out by immigration officers after warrantless arrests in Colorado between Nov. 25, 2025, and Dec. 31, 2025, alone. None of them allegedly complied with the requirements of the Nov. 25 preliminary injunction issued by U.S. District Court Judge R. Brooke Jackson, a Barack Obama appointee, which barred ICE from conducting warrantless arrests without first checking whether there was a flight risk.
Denver immigration attorney Hans Meyer told The Denver Post that ICE has been "flipping the bird" at Jackson's order by repeatedly refusing to show compliance.
"ICE is going to continue to violate the court order, and try to cook the books, by ginning up some sort of pretext after the fact and try to cheat their way around the court order, rather than just following the law," Meyer said.
In the amended complaint, which was filed Feb. 2, Meyer and the other lawyers say ICE's "illegal practices have terrorized the community and sowed distrust in police." They allege that people are being arrested during purported traffic stops, "simply walking in neighborhoods or near workplaces where Coloradans ICE profiles as noncitizens live and make their living," and even while reporting to scheduled check-ins with ICE.
"The people swept up in these warrantless arrests include community members with no criminal records whatsoever; they include asylum seekers; they include parents and families' primary breadwinners," the complaint says. "Notwithstanding this court's order, defendants have persisted in pursuing the administration's unlawful warrantless arrest policy and practice in order to follow the president's directive to 'do all in their power to achieve the very important goal of delivering the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History.'"
Evidence is presented throughout the complaint showing how ICE agents targeted numerous people without checking their flight risk status after Jackson issued his order, according to the immigration lawyers. A Colorado Springs father, for instance, who has lived in the United States for 11 years was nabbed by federal officers while "waiting as a designated driver for a friend" at a local nightclub.
ICE agents allegedly arrested the 32-year-old "without evaluating his likelihood of escape before a warrant could be obtained" and then kept him locked up at a detention facility for over six weeks before he was able to hire counsel and obtain a bond hearing.
The dad now "feels nervous leaving his home and fears going to public places," the complaint says. "[The father] constantly worries about being separated from his American-born son," the document adds.
Immigration lawyers say Colorado's communities know ICE's tactics "all too well and live in constant fear" as a result of Jackson's order being violated. ICE arrests have seen a nearly "300% increase from the same period in 2024," per the lawyers.
"There is no sign ICE will slow down," the complaint says, noting how the agency's "footprint in Colorado could soon grow" as President Trump's budget in the "One Big Beautiful Bill" designated $170 billion to immigration enforcement, including more than $45 billion for additional ICE detention space.
"ICE agents are ignoring the law's clear requirement to assess flight risk before making a warrantless arrest," the complaint concludes. "Instead, they are scrambling to fill arbitrary quotas set by the administration, causing chaos and terror in neighborhoods throughout Colorado. This lawsuit seeks to enjoin Defendants' ongoing pattern and practice of flouting federal law in connection with their mass immigration arrests in Colorado."