DENVER — This week, Colorado Congressman Gabe Evans joined five fellow congressional Republicans in urging U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to focus on removing criminals from the country.
In a Wednesday letter to ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons — shared first by Axios — the six members of the Congressional Hispanic Conference said they stand behind President Donald Trump’s strict immigration policy, but also share the concern that the agency’s “limited resources may be stretched to pursue individuals that do not constitute an immediate threat to public safety.”
“While we do agree that we are a nation of laws — and that all who crossed our borders illegally are subject to those laws — there are levels of priority that must be considered when it comes to immigration enforcement,” the letter reads. “Every minute that we spend pursuing an individual with a clean record is a minute less that we dedicate to apprehending terrorists or cartel operatives.”
The letter is signed by Reps. Gabe Evans of Colorado, Tony Gonzales of Texas, Monica De La Cruz of Texas, María Elvira Salazar of Florida, Nicole Malliotakis of New York and David Valadao of California.
This month, ICE raids have targeted work sites in California. Protests against those raids then broke out in Los Angeles and have since spread to cities like Denver, where hundreds marched through the streets on Tuesday before some eventually clashed with Denver police. The department reported that 18 people were arrested Tuesday night.
Denver7 reached out to Evans for an interview on Thursday, but his team said he was not available. He instead shared this statement, “The point of the letter is to make sure we’re doing what we said we were going to do all along: crush the criminals and cartels who are making Colorado the second most dangerous state in the nation so we can work on a path for people who are immigrating the right way.”
Evans’ grandfather was a Mexican immigrant who became a U.S. citizen by serving in the military during World War II. This February, the freshman congressman introduced a bill banning state or local governments from restricting cooperation with federal immigration officials, which is the case under Colorado law.
Raquel Lane-Arellano, who lives in Colorado’s 8th Congressional District, represented by Evans, is part of the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition. She sent Denver7 a statement, “Rep. Gabe Evans wants to decide who from our communities deserves to stay, but tearing families apart has never made our country stronger. He pretends to care about fairness, but supports a political movement that treats all immigrants as threats. Instead of wasting time asking an agency hell bent on terrorizing our communities for clarity, Rep. Gabe Evans should denounce the Trump administration’s scapegoating and mass deportation agenda. He should push for real solutions — like a pathway to citizenship and fixing the broken immigration system once and for all.”
The Republicans’ letter to ICE also asks for answers, including how many of the immigrants deported since January are convicted criminals and what their charges are. The lawmakers are calling for more clarity by the end of this month.
