Colorado Fines Workers Who Help ICE and Sends the Money to an Immigration Legal Defense Fund

Is there a difference between a state that refuses to help federal agents and a state that gets in their way?

Colorado has spent two years testing that line. In 2026, a federal judge said one of its laws crossed it.

Start with a principle that is real. The U.S. Constitution splits power between the federal government and the states. Under the Tenth Amendment, the federal government cannot order a state to enforce federal law. The Supreme Court said so in a 1997 case called Printz v. United States. So a state may keep its own police officers and its own budget out of federal immigration enforcement.

Immigration enforcement is mainly the job of a federal agency, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE. Colorado has had laws for several years limiting what its state agencies share with ICE. Two recent bills went much further.

SB25-276, signed May 23, 2025, does five main things.

1. It covers every local government. Colorado's limits on sharing personal information with immigration agents used to apply only to state agencies. Now they apply to every county and city too. A state or local worker may not share private personal information to help federal immigration enforcement unless a law requires it or a court orders it.
2. It covers schools, hospitals, and libraries. Public child care centers, public schools, public colleges, public hospitals and clinics, and public libraries may not collect a person's place of birth, immigration or citizenship status, or information from passports, green cards, or work permits, with a few exceptions. Each had to adopt a written policy by September 1, 2025 on how staff should respond when immigration agents show up.
3. It releases people on schedule. A jail "shall not delay a defendant's release from custody for the purpose of an immigration enforcement operation." ICE often sends a "detainer," a request to hold someone until agents can pick them up. Under this law, officers may not hold anyone because of that request, and they may not ask ordinary citizens to help with such an arrest.
4. It closes the state line to other states' troops. Military forces from another state, such as another state's National Guard, may not enter Colorado without the Governor's permission, unless they are under federal orders.
5. It drops a promise. Colorado used to require a person without legal immigration status who applied for a state ID card to sign a statement promising they had applied, or would apply, for legal status. SB25-276 removes that requirement.

Then comes the enforcement. A state or local worker who knowingly breaks these rules can be taken to court and fined up to $50,000 for each violation. Schools, hospitals, and libraries face the same fine. Every dollar collected for an immigration-related violation goes into the state's Immigration Legal Defense Fund, which helps pay for lawyers for immigrants.

Picture a county clerk who answers an ICE agent's request for records without a court order. Under SB25-276, that clerk can personally owe up to $50,000, and the money goes to the Immigration Legal Defense Fund.

A year later, lawmakers turned to the facility where ICE holds people.

The facility at the center of this fight is the Aurora ICE Processing Center. It is run by a private company, The GEO Group, under a contract with ICE. HB26-1276, signed June 4, 2026, targets facilities like it. The law covers any local, county, or private building that holds people for immigration cases, "including a facility that is operated on behalf of or pursuant to a contract with federal immigration authorities." It does not cover facilities "operated directly by the federal government."

1. Surprise inspections every three months. The state health department must inspect these facilities without warning "at least one time every three months," and "the facility shall pay for the inspections." Inspectors get access to detainees, records, managers, and staff.
2. New rules to follow. The department may require a yearly report on the health of detainees, ban housing a child in the same room with an unrelated adult, and require medical and mental health staff on site at all times.
3. The same fine, sent to the same place. A facility that refuses an inspection owes up to $50,000 for each refusal. A facility that breaks one of the department's rules owes up to $50,000 for each violation. The state Attorney General enforces it, and the money goes to the Immigration Legal Defense Fund.

Notice what the law leaves out. It skips facilities run directly by the federal government. That tells you lawmakers knew a state cannot regulate the federal government itself. So they wrote the law to reach the private company working for the federal government instead.

Put the two laws side by side and one detail repeats. Both use a $50,000 fine. Both send the money to the same fund. SB25-276 fines the local worker who cooperates with immigration agents. HB26-1276 fines the company that holds immigration detainees for the federal government. In both, money collected from immigration enforcement pays for the legal defense against it.

A state that only wanted to stay out of immigration enforcement would not need a fine, or a fund for the fine to go into. It would simply say no.

Try a fair test. In 2019, dozens of Colorado counties declared themselves "Second Amendment sanctuaries." They said they would not spend local resources enforcing the state's new red flag law, which lets courts take guns from people judged to be dangerous. Conservatives cheered, and they were right to. A local government that refuses to spend its own money enforcing a law it believes is wrong is using the same Tenth Amendment freedom Colorado is claiming now. If that principle protects a sheriff in Weld County, it protects a city council in Denver.

So far, the courts have agreed with Colorado on that point. The U.S. Justice Department sued Colorado and Denver over their sanctuary laws in May 2025 and added SB25-276 to the lawsuit in July 2025. On March 31, 2026, federal Judge Gordon Gallagher threw out the case, writing that "the Federal Government does not have the power to direct the Colorado legislature or Colorado state and local officials in such a fashion." He decided the case on that point alone, and did not rule on the government's other arguments. The Justice Department has appealed to the Tenth Circuit, the federal appeals court that covers Colorado, arguing that Colorado's and Denver's policies actively block federal immigration enforcement.

The comparison with the Second Amendment sanctuary counties has a limit, though. Those counties chose not to act. None of them fined a deputy who decided to help the state, or sent the fine to a legal fund for the other side. SB25-276 goes further than keeping Colorado's resources at home. It takes away a local worker's choice to cooperate, and then punishes that choice. Declining to help is federalism. Punishing the people who do help is something else.

HB26-1276 shows where that road ends. On August 20, 2026, Chief U.S. District Judge Daniel Domenico, ruling in a lawsuit filed by The GEO Group, blocked the surprise inspections, the rule making the facility pay for them, the access requirements, and the $50,000 fines. He wrote that the law "facially singles out federal activity for state regulation. That is typically enough for preemption." In plain terms, when a state law targets federal work, federal law wins. He left in place the counties' power to inspect and the department's power to write rules, noting the state had no current plans to write those rules. His order lasts until October 15, 2026, when GEO's current contract with ICE ends.

One federal judge said Colorado may stay out of immigration enforcement. Another said Colorado may not regulate it. The line runs between those two rulings.

Amendment 81 is on the November 3, 2026 statewide ballot. It is sponsored by Advance Colorado. It would require state and local police to notify federal immigration authorities when they charge certain crimes against a person known to be "not lawfully present" in the country, or whose status is unknown. Because it would change the state constitution, it needs 55 percent of the vote to pass.

Both SB25-276 and HB26-1276 carried a "safety clause," which makes a law take effect right away and blocks citizens from putting it on the ballot. Amendment 81 is the first time Colorado voters will vote on this question at all.

SB25-276 passed the Senate 22-13 and the House 42-21. The Senate accepted the House's changes 35-0 and passed the final version 23-12. Its lead sponsors were Senators Julie Gonzales and Michael Weissman and Representatives Elizabeth Velasco and Lorena Garcia, all Democrats.

HB26-1276 passed the House 42-21 and the Senate 23-12. The House accepted the Senate's changes 45-19 and passed the final version 42-22. Its lead sponsors were Representatives Velasco and Garcia and Senators Iman Jodeh and Weissman, all Democrats.

Colorado has every right to keep its own officers out of federal immigration enforcement. It wrote a $50,000 fine for the ones who choose to step in.

This is our read of the law. We encourage you to read it yourself and reach your own conclusions.