Ballot measure would require notice from Colorado law enforcement to immigration authorities
Colorado voters in November will decide if law enforcement in the state should be required to work with federal immigration authorities.
Initiative 95 would amend the Colorado Constitution to require law enforcement to notify the U.S. Department of Homeland Security when a person who is not in the country lawfully, or when it is unclear if the person is lawfully present, is charged with a violent crime or was previously convicted of a felony.
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Law enforcement agencies would have 72 hours after charging someone with a crime to notify DHS if the agency could not determine whether the person is lawfully present after making “a reasonable attempt” to determine it.
Colorado law currently restricts law enforcement from helping with federal immigration enforcement. Officers cannot keep someone in custody based on an ICE detainer request or arrest someone suspected of being in the country illegally at a courthouse.
Local government officials and employees are also prohibited from sharing personal identifying information about immigration status with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which operates under DHS. Public officials who intentionally violate that data sharing provision are liable for a $50,000 civil fine, which goes to the state’s immigration legal defense fund.
As a constitutional amendment, the measure would need 55 percent of the vote to pass.
Advance Colorado, a conservative nonprofit advocacy group that does not disclose its donors, is behind the measure. The group led another ballot measure on the 2026 ballot that would mandate harsher penalties for possession of fentanyl.
U.S. Customs and Border patrol agents this week in Minneapolis shot and killed Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old ICU nurse, just two weeks after ICE agents shot and killed Renee Good in that city. The two killings have sparked nationwide outrage, even as President Donald Trump’s top advisers have rushed to spread false information about Pretti and Good, both of whom were smeared as “domestic terrorists” by the administration within hours of being killed.
The election is Nov. 3.
