Colorado law threatens deputies with $50,000 fines for alerting federal authorities about violent felons in the country illegally. Meanwhile, Venezuelan gang members operated freely in Aurora apartment complexes for over a year while state officials concealed the threat. On November 3, voters can end this with Initiative #95.
Mesa County Deputy Alexander Zwinck pulled over a 19-year-old nursing student on June 5 for following too closely. He shared her information with federal immigration agents. She had no criminal record but an expired visa. ICE detained her for 15 days.
Attorney General Phil Weiser sued Zwinck, placed him on unpaid leave for three weeks, and reassigned him to patrol. Weiser claimed the deputy violated Senate Bill 25-276, which imposes civil penalties up to $50,000 for state employees who share personal information with ICE.
Mesa County Sheriff Todd Rowell revealed Colorado State Patrol troopers engaged in identical conduct in the same Signal chat. Weiser filed no lawsuits against them. The sheriff called this “demoralizing” and applied “selectively for maximum political effect.” Mesa County commissioners voted to countersue Governor Jared Polis and Weiser in August.
ICE arrested 3,522 people in Colorado between January 20 and October 15, 2025—nearly five times the 734 arrested during the same period in 2024. Among those detained: 16 with homicide charges, 52 with sex offense charges. How many were previously encountered by Colorado law enforcement but not reported because of the $50,000 penalty threat? The state refuses to track that information.
While Colorado prosecuted a deputy for helping catch a nursing student, Tren de Aragua gang members terrorized Aurora residents. Aurora Police Department documents show officials knew about Venezuelan-connected criminal activity at CBZ Management apartment complexes since June 2023. They withheld this from the public until viral surveillance video forced acknowledgment in August 2024.
In November 2023, gang members beat a property management consultant so severely he required hospitalization. By February 2024, APD emails noted “multiple violent cases involving those addresses with Venezuelan suspects since about June of 2023.” On June 27, 2024, Tren de Aragua informed landlords they were “now in charge” of three apartment complexes.
Criminal investigations at CBZ properties nearly doubled yearly: 41 in 2022, 84 in 2023, 66 in just the first half of 2024. Crimes included motor vehicle theft, robbery, sexual assault, aggravated assault, and shootings. A law firm found gang members engaged in “human trafficking and sexual abuse of minors, unlawful firearms possession, extortion” while exerting a “stranglehold” on properties.
Denver spent $356 million for approximately 43,000 migrants since late 2022, according to Common Sense Institute. That’s $8,279 per person over two years, or $4,140 annually. The study excludes incarceration costs, which are “largely invisible because law enforcement does not inquire about nation of origin.”
Cost concealment extends statewide. Colorado Springs spent $7.3 million through Lutheran Family Services between 2021 and 2024, with sharp increases as sanctuary policies intensified. No comprehensive statewide accounting exists for healthcare, K-12 education, criminal justice, emergency services, or social programs. The state deliberately avoids tracking total expenditures.
Left-wing advocacy groups claim illegal immigrants paid $436.5 million in Colorado taxes in 2022. The figure cannot be verified—it assumes full tax compliance from a population working off the books with no mechanism to verify cash payments or actual versus reported income. Underreporting creates perverse incentives: appear poorer to qualify for assistance while claiming to pay taxes on unreported income.
Even accepting the unverifiable claim destroys the argument. The advocacy group estimates 156,000 illegal immigrants statewide. Their claimed $436.5 million equals $2,798 per person annually. Denver’s documented costs of $4,140 per person exceed claimed tax payments by $1,342—just one city’s expenses, excluding education, incarceration, and healthcare costs the state hides.
Initiative #95, which qualified with 142,299 valid signatures, would require law enforcement to notify the Department of Homeland Security within 72 hours of charging someone whose immigration status cannot be verified if that person has a prior felony conviction or is charged with a crime of violence. The measure uses Colorado’s existing definition from C.R.S. 18-1.3-406, which includes felonies with deadly weapons or causing serious bodily injury, plus murder, assault, kidnapping, robbery, sexual assault, and human trafficking.
The initiative overrides House Bill 19-1124, Senate Bill 21-131, House Bill 23-1100, and Senate Bill 25-276. Passage requires 55 percent voter approval.
The U.S. Department of Justice sued Colorado and Denver on May 2, challenging the sanctuary laws as Supremacy Clause violations. Douglas County and El Paso County filed separate lawsuits in May 2024. All cases remain pending.
Proponents Michael Fields and Suzanne Taheri of Advance Colorado argued the current framework punishes officers “who proactively communicate with federal authorities, with no exception for reporting a dangerous offender.”
Initiative #95 asks whether law enforcement should alert federal authorities when they charge violent felons in the country illegally, or continue a framework that protects gang members while prosecuting deputies.
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