FILE – Law officials spread out through an apartment complex during a raid, Feb. 5, 2025, in east Denver (AP Photo/David Zalubowski, File).
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Colorado appear to be disregarding a federal judge’s directive that mandates an assessment of flight risk before conducting warrantless arrests. According to immigration lawyers, these agents continue to apprehend “parents and families” from vehicles and public areas with the intent to deport them.
Despite a court-issued preliminary injunction on November 25, 2025, which prevents ICE from carrying out warrantless arrests without evaluating flight risk and necessitates documentation of specific reasons for probable cause, ICE agents allegedly continue these practices. An amended complaint filed last week claims that ICE is blatantly ignoring both federal law and the court’s instructions. “Permanent class-wide injunctive relief is necessary to protect Coloradans from defendants’ disregard for the limits of their authority,” the complaint asserts.
In collaboration with the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado, the East Colfax Community Collective, and two Denver law firms, lawyers have identified at least 58 instances where immigration officers completed forms following warrantless arrests in Colorado between November 25, 2025, and December 31, 2025. Allegedly, none of these forms adhered to the requirements of the preliminary injunction issued by U.S. District Court Judge R. Brooke Jackson, who was appointed by Barack Obama. This injunction explicitly restricts ICE from executing warrantless arrests without first determining whether a flight risk exists.
Hans Meyer, a Denver-based immigration attorney, expressed to The Denver Post that ICE seems to be blatantly disregarding Judge Jackson’s order, showing no indication of compliance.
“ICE is set on violating the court order and manipulating the situation by fabricating justifications after the fact to sidestep the court’s directive instead of adhering to the law,” Meyer stated.
The amended complaint, submitted on February 2, underscores how ICE’s “unlawful practices have instilled fear within the community and eroded trust in law enforcement.” It accuses ICE of arresting individuals during traffic stops, while they are walking in neighborhoods or near workplaces where ICE profiles them as noncitizens, and even when they report for scheduled check-ins with ICE, further exacerbating community tensions and fear.
“The people swept up in these warrantless arrests include community members with no criminal records whatsoever; they include asylum seekers; they include parents and families’ primary breadwinners,” the complaint says. “Notwithstanding this court’s order, defendants have persisted in pursuing the administration’s unlawful warrantless arrest policy and practice in order to follow the president’s directive to ‘do all in their power to achieve the very important goal of delivering the single largest Mass Deportation Program in History.’”
Evidence is presented throughout the complaint showing how ICE agents targeted numerous people without checking their flight risk status after Jackson issued his order, according to the immigration lawyers. A Colorado Springs father, for instance, who has lived in the United States for 11 years was nabbed by federal officers while “waiting as a designated driver for a friend” at a local nightclub.
ICE agents allegedly arrested the 32-year-old “without evaluating his likelihood of escape before a warrant could be obtained” and then kept him locked up at a detention facility for over six weeks before he was able to hire counsel and obtain a bond hearing.
The dad now “feels nervous leaving his home and fears going to public places,” the complaint says. “[The father] constantly worries about being separated from his American-born son,” the document adds.
Immigration lawyers say Colorado’s communities know ICE’s tactics “all too well and live in constant fear” as a result of Jackson’s order being violated. ICE arrests have seen a nearly “300% increase from the same period in 2024,” per the lawyers.
“There is no sign ICE will slow down,” the complaint says, noting how the agency’s “footprint in Colorado could soon grow” as President Trump’s budget in the “One Big Beautiful Bill” designated $170 billion to immigration enforcement, including more than $45 billion for additional ICE detention space.
“ICE agents are ignoring the law’s clear requirement to assess flight risk before making a warrantless arrest,” the complaint concludes. “Instead, they are scrambling to fill arbitrary quotas set by the administration, causing chaos and terror in neighborhoods throughout Colorado. This lawsuit seeks to enjoin Defendants’ ongoing pattern and practice of flouting federal law in connection with their mass immigration arrests in Colorado.”
