Democratic Colorado state Reps. Naquetta Ricks of Aurora, center left, and Junie Joseph of Boulder, center right, lead a press conference to speak out against President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda at the state Capitol on Jan. 22, 2025. Credit: Colorado Newsline

As President Donald Trump’s second term in office continued to spend its first days pursuing aggressive new limitations on both lawful and unlawful means of immigrating to the United States, Colorado lawmakers and community advocates came together at the state Capitol to warn of the catastrophic consequences Trump’s rash and irrational plans will have for immigrants and non-immigrants alike.

In another related development, Attorneys general in Colorado and 21 other states – as well as the District of Columbia and San Francisco – challenged the order in court a day after Trump’s inauguration, attempting to stop the president’s order that would end birth right citizenship. . They argue that the right to citizenship is enshrined in the Constitution.

In his second term, Trump has vowed to carry out the “largest domestic deportation operation in American history.” By his own estimation his “deport them all” agenda would apply to more than 20 million people, though independent estimates put the country’s true undocumented population at around 12 million. No exceptions are to be made for undocumented parents or other relatives of underage U.S. citizens, Trump’s “border czar,” former Immigration and Customs Enforcement director Tom Homan, said recenty.

Democratic state Rep. Naquetta Ricks, a Liberian immigrant who represents Aurora — a community that has been singled out by Trump for immigration enforcement operations — noted that 11.4% of Colorado’s workforce is made up of immigrants and that undocumented workers are instrumental in construction, agriculture and other important industries in the state.

“As a state, we have set ambitious goals to build more homes, create good jobs, reduce the cost of living, and create thriving, safer, resilient communities,” Ricks said recently. “We know that immigrants and their contributions to our communities are key to realizing these goals.”

Ricks described fleeing her native country of Liberia during a civil war in which her friends and family members were killed. Her family joined relatives in Colorado and — like many current immigrants from Venezuela and elsewhere — sought political asylum, a legal process that the Trump administration has moved to swiftly and drastically restrict.

“My mom, my sister and myself had to flee our home, and we were able to come to Aurora to seek refuge,” Ricks said. “Aurora is a place that is very, very diverse … We know that diversity is all around us, and that diversity makes us rich.”

State Senator Julie Gonzales, a Democrat representing Denver, said that the president’s orders “are full of harmful mischaracterizations, false narratives.”

“Donald Trump’s division, cruelty and ugliness live in his executive orders, [like] his flatly unconstitutional attacks on birthright citizenship,” Gonzales said. “What that fear and rhetoric and division end up leading to are more threats, more attacks, children being afraid to go to school, go to the library.”

Trump also declared an emergency at the Mexican border on his first day in office, which will send more troops, barriers and enforcement resources to southern border states. Trump Border Czar Tom Homan has been quoted as saying that the Department of Homeland Security has issued a memo to allow ICE agents to enter formerly off-limit spaces like churches, hospitals and schools.

That statement from Tom Homan has led several Colorado school districts to create protocols for what to do if Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrive on their campuses. According to memos sent out to school district staff, Denver Public Schools will not let ICE agents in unless they show proof of a warrant.

Aurora Public Schools will also be enacting a district-wide policy, telling students that if they are approached by an ICE agent, they should direct them to contact the district’s Office of General Counsel. However, this policy outlines some exceptions. If an ICE officer tells a student that there is an emergency or that they have a lawful order, the district says students should comply and then immediately contact the district’s legal office.

Many additional districts throughout Colorado are already considering what is necessary to keep their students safe in the wake of recent threats.

With Trump’s targeting the southern border with Mexico and Venezuelan migrants in interior cities, Latino communities feel singled out, but lawmakers and activists promised to protect African and Muslim communities, as well.

An estimated 40,000 migrants, many of them Venezuelans lawfully seeking asylum, arrived in the Denver metro area beginning in early 2023. New arrivals peaked in January 2024 before dropping off precipitously, according to data from Denver city officials. By one estimate, no other metro area in the country absorbed as many new arrivals per capita as the Mile High City and its neighbors, including Aurora.

While campaigning for a second term, Trump attacked undocumented immigrants for their “bad genes” and accused them of “poisoning the blood of our country,” rhetoric that drew widespread comparisons to remarks by Adolf Hitler and other far-right nationalist leaders. His top immigration adviser, Stephen Miller, said during last year’s Aurora rally that Trump would create “a country of, by and for Americans, and Americans only.”

Democratic state Senator Iman Jodeh, the first Muslim elected to the Colorado state legislature, promised to protect Muslim communities targeted by Trump’s travel ban from Muslim-majority countries during his first term. Two weeks after Trump won his re-election in November, Jodeh started a caucus for lawmakers representing Muslim, Middle Eastern, North African and South Asian communities, the Joint MENASA and Muslim Caucus.

“We saw the writing on the wall, and I want our communities to understand they have one more line of defense: they have representation from the first Palestinian elected to the Colorado State Legislature,” Jodeh said to his constituents. “You’re going to need that protection. We’re power in numbers.”

Papa Dia, who is the executive director of the African Leadership Group, warned that Trump is “trying to turn us against each other” by demonizing different immigrant communities.

“They paint the Latino community as gangsters, as rapists, but they’re trying to turn us in the African community against the Latino community, and we will not let that happen,” Dia said.  “They try to label the Muslim community as terrorists. You know they’re trying to turn us against the Muslim community. We are all human beings.”

Governor Jared Polis said during his State of the State address on January 9 that Colorado will “welcome more federal help to detain and deport dangerous criminals,” but has also pushed back on Trump’s order to end birthright citizenship. In 2019, Colorado Democrats passed a bill, signed by Gov. Jared Polis that limits state and local law enforcement cooperation with federal immigration agents.

The law prevents law enforcement from assisting federal immigration agents on civil issues or providing information about an individual wanted by immigration. Law enforcement can only help if there is a federal warrant for a crime.

Apparently not all in Colorado apparently share the sentiments of the majority who are against Trump’s orders as Colorado’s board of commissioners in Douglas County on a day after the executive orders were signed by Trump approved a resolution in support of President Donald Trump’s mass deportation plan.

The unanimous vote confirmed Douglas’s status as a “non-sanctuary county.” Included in the resolution is support for citizens of other countries who are present in the U.S. legally.

It also “formally opposes those who use their positions to hinder actionable solutions to the many problems arising from illegal immigration.”

Under the resolution, the county will “actively oppose the laws, officials and institutions” which “conspire to disrupt” Trump’s plans. The resolution also calls for similar policies to be implemented throughout the state of Colorado.

By and large, the majority of Coloradans are firmly against Trump’s immigration stance and are counting on their legislators to help protect them. The battle lines are been drawn and the State of Colorado plans to slug it out with the Trump administration till one party blinks. Who blinks first? The road ahead definitely promises to be a nail biting one.