A Denver judge said Wednesday that state law doesn’t allow officials to comply with a federal immigration subpoena that Gov. Jared Polis had decided to fulfill, and he prohibited the governor from directing a senior state employee and his staff from turning over personal information to authorities.
But District Judge A. Bruce Jones said he wouldn’t block Polis or other state officials from otherwise responding to the subpoena. He said, though, that he would find it “very problematic” if Polis and the state fulfilled the request, which seeks employment and health records on 35 people, without first notifying those individuals that their information was about to be turned over to federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
Read our previous coverage below
- Whistleblower who accused Polis of violating Colorado law testifies in court
- Immigrant and labor advocates criticize Polis over cooperation with ICE subpoena
- Lawsuit: State employee claims Polis directed him to turn over sensitive information to ICE
The decision is a temporary order that will hold while the rest of senior state official Scott Moss’ lawsuit against Polis plays out. It effectively means that Moss, a director in the state Department of Labor and Employment, and his staff can’t be ordered to comply with a subpoena that seeks records on the sponsors of unaccompanied and undocumented children.
Moss sued Polis this month, alleging that the governor personally decided to comply with the subpoena despite Moss’ contention that doing so would enable the deportation of children and would violate a state law that generally prohibits sharing information with ICE.
Jones signaled throughout the hearing, which stretched over three days, that he didn’t buy Polis’ argument that the subpoena was related to a criminal investigation, which would trigger an exemption in state law allowing the information to be shared with ICE. Jones reaffirmed that position Wednesday, saying that complying with the subpoena “would be a violation of the statute.”
Read the full story from our partners at The Denver Post.
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