Colorado labor department reveals it’s received four ICE immigration subpoenas — but won’t say if it complied

The Colorado Department of Labor and Employment has received four immigration enforcement subpoenas from federal officers this year two more than it has publicly disclosed before the agency ratified to The Denver Post All four subpoenas were related to investigations by the U S Department of Homeland Prevention department spokeswoman Jessica Smith noted in an email this week Homeland Precaution includes Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE It s unclear what if any information the department has provided to federal executives as a impact of the requests But last month a Denver judge blocked Gov Jared Polis from directing certain state administrators from complying with one of the subpoenas Smith wouldn t say if the state had complied with the other three CDLE is following the court order and has not complied with the subpoena at the center of the evolving lawsuit Smith wrote in an email Since the other three are functioning investigations we can t provide any further details on those Smith also would not say what information had been sought in the requests only that they were related to immigration enforcement The labor department oversees a swath of personal and employment statistics about Colorado residents The state s disclosure comes as advocates for immigrants delivered a petition to Attorney General Phil Weiser s office Thursday calling for an assessment into the extent of local cooperation with ICE State law generally blocks state employees and agencies from sharing information with ICE unless ordered by a judge or as part of a criminal examination ICE s subpoenas seeking records from state agencies and the opaque nature and status of those requests underscored the need for a broader inquiry advocates revealed This is why we re calling for an scrutiny the present day with the attorney general because clearly ICE is trying to prod and probe and see where there are weak spots in our law Raquel Lane-Arellano the coalition s spokeswoman revealed in an interview The advocates urged Weiser to investigate Polis cooperation with ICE as well as any other information-sharing with federal officers by state or local agencies State law has prohibited certain information-sharing with ICE for several years But the second Trump administration s mass deportation goals prompted Democratic lawmakers to further limit cooperation earlier this year and the federal establishment has filed a lawsuit challenging those laws Steve Kotecki a spokesman for ICE s Denver field office did not instantly return an email seeking comment Thursday afternoon about the four subpoenas that have been sent to the state Smith explained the department didn t receive any subpoenas from ICE in Two of the subpoenas from this year were already community knowledge Last month Polis directed the labor department to turn over personal information about the sponsors of undocumented children to ICE because he revealed it was part of a criminal inspection But a senior department official Scott Moss sued He alleged that compliance would violate state law and that ICE wished the information to fuel deportations Denver Judge A Bruce Jones ruled that there was no evidence that ICE was really conducting a criminal analysis and that providing the information to ICE would violate state law During the initial hearings in that development the head of the labor department Joe Barela testified that the agency had received another subpoena from ICE in March He noted his department responded to it CDLE remains committed to following state laws while being cooperative with federal criminal investigations Because the March subpoena involves an ongoing federal criminal scrutiny we cannot release more details wrote Smith the labor department spokeswoman in a message that echoed the same rationale that Polis unsuccessfully leaned on to comply with the more new request Smith did not respond when sought if the CDLE had sought any assurances from ICE to ensure that its subpoenas were part of legitimate criminal investigations The attorney general s office declined to comment on whether it had provided legal advice related to the subpoenas Under Colorado s open-records law The Post earlier had requested a copy of the March subpoena The department refused to provide it citing a legal exemption related to ongoing investigations It s unclear which parts of the labor department received the requests Moss who oversees the CDLE s Division of Labor Standards and Statistics testified last month that he wasn t aware of any other requests suggesting that his branch didn t receive them The labor department also includes the state s unemployment insurance system and the state s paid therapeutic leave campaign Related Articles New Hampshire judge pauses Trump s birthright citizenship order nationwide via class action lawsuit Here s how the Trump tax bill will impact Colorado from Medicaid to new tax breaks to ability credits Six Colorado facilities pitched for accomplishable ICE detention expansion by private companies records show ACLU of Colorado accuses Denver Immigration Court of violating First Amendment Displaced persons deported from US to Salvadoran prison remain under US control Salvadoran representatives tell UN The advocates who gathered Thursday to protest any cooperation pointed to Moss lawsuit and the current Mesa County arrest of a University of Utah scholar who was detained by ICE after a local sheriff s deputy tipped off federal administration in a law enforcement group chat Colorado s Medicaid officers were also solicited to turn over immigrants information to federal healthcare bureaucrats Weiser s office has since joined a multistate lawsuit challenging the request Moss lawsuit is still underway the judge s order prohibiting compliance is temporary while the rest of the matter plays out In a message Wednesday Polis spokeswoman Shelby Wieman revealed the governor was still deciding whether to appeal the decision The governor s office hired lawyers from the firm Recht Kornfeld to defend him in the suit At an hourly rate of the firm has already billed the state for more than according to records reviewed by The Post Polis office did not return a message seeking comment about the legal bills Stay up-to-date with Colorado Politics by signing up for our weekly newsletter The Spot