Nearly a month after the April 27 raid on an illegal nightclub in Colorado Springs, an immigrants’ rights group continued to question whether law enforcement agents acted lawfully when they detained 86 of the club’s patrons without first confirming that they were in the United States illegally.
“Detaining individuals without evidence they’re undocumented, especially in such a violent and traumatizing way, simply because someone can’t immediately prove legal status, is not only unjust but may also be unlawful,” Annette Leyva, the South Regional Organizer of the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition (CIRC), said in an email sent to the Pikes Peak Bulletin.
Witnesses told CIRC that if the people who were rounded up during the raid “couldn’t immediately prove they were U.S. citizens, they were detained and put on buses,” Leyva said.
A spokesperson for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) referred the Bulletin to a statement the agency gave last week, which said ICE agents have “a range of law enforcement and intelligence techniques to identify aliens who are present in the United States without authorization or are otherwise removable.”
The spokesperson also said that ICE has the “authority to question, without warrant, anyone “believed to be an alien” about whether they are lawfully in the United States.
“This … suggests the use of racial profiling, where people are seemingly targeted based on how they look,” Leyva said. “This should worry everyone, regardless of immigration status. Even U.S. citizens can be and have been harassed or detained simply for ‘looking like an immigrant,’ which underscores a dangerous erosion of civil liberties and due process.”
Around 200 people were at the club on the night of the raid. Seventeen were service members, and 104, including the 86 who were transferred to the Aurora facility to await immigration proceedings, according to ICE, were said by law enforcement to be undocumented individuals.
One of the 86 was released last week, Leyva said. An ICE spokesman declined to comment on whether any of the nightclub patrons had been released from the facility or deported, but a report released by staff at Rep. Jason Crow’s office, whose district includes Aurora, showed that seven detainees had been released into the community between May 1 and 16, and 124 had been deported.
This should worry everyone, regardless of immigration status. – Annette Leyva, South Regional Organizer, CIRC
An ICE spokesperson said the 86 people who were taken to Aurora were not under deportation orders.
The Trump administration has deported around 140,000 people so far, according to an Associated Press tally. While government officials have said they are removing violent, dangerous criminals, many of the deported migrants insist that they are innocent and were removed without due process, the AP wrote.
Last week, ICE agents showed up at immigration hearings, coordinated with government attorneys to have cases dismissed, and “handcuffed people as soon as they left the courtroom,” immigration lawyer and policy expert, and CEO of Immigrant ARC, Camille Mackler, wrote on social media.
“This wasn’t about public safety,” she said. “This was about exploiting new rules – like the Trump administration’s recent expansion of expedited removal to apply to anyone who has been in the U.S. for less than two years – to remove people who had done nothing wrong except show up for their [immigration] court dates in good faith.”
On President Donald Trump’s second day in office, Jan. 21, a notice published in the Federal Register gave the Department of Homeland Security the authority to expedite the removal of most foreigners who had been “determined to be inadmissible” because they had lied, committed fraud, or did not have valid entry documents, such as a visa, or passport, when they entered the United States.
The new rules, which include a number of exceptions and caveats, would “enhance national security and public safety – while reducing government costs – by facilitating prompt immigration determinations,” the notice says.
Most people who “illegally entered the United States within the past two years are subject to expedited removals,” an ICE spokesperson explained. “If they have a valid, credible fear claim, they will continue in immigration proceedings, but if no valid claim is found, [they] will be subject to a swift deportation.”
Like Mackler, Leyva rejected the idea that the Trump administration’s deportation push would make America safer.
“This is an administration that is not concerned about public safety or legality,” she said. “This is about stoking fear and division in our communities through the violent kidnappings of our neighbors.”
