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 authorities this year — two more than it has publicly disclosed before, the agency confirmed to The Denver Post.

All four subpoenas were related to investigations by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, department spokeswoman Jessica Smith said in an email this week. Homeland Security includes Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

It’s unclear what, if any, information the department has provided to federal authorities as a result of the requests. But last month, a Denver judge blocked Gov. Jared Polis from directing certain state officials 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 active lawsuit,” Smith wrote in an email. “Since the other three are active 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 data 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 investigation 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 investigation.

ICE’s subpoenas seeking records from state agencies — and the opaque nature and status of those requests — underscored the need for a broader investigation, advocates said.

“This is why we’re calling for an investigation today, 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, said in an interview.

The advocates urged Weiser to investigate Polis’ cooperation with ICE as well as any other information-sharing with federal authorities 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 government has filed a lawsuit challenging those laws.

Steve Kotecki, a spokesman for ICE’s Denver field office, did not immediately return an email seeking comment Thursday afternoon about the four subpoenas that have been sent to the state.

Smith said the department didn’t receive any subpoenas from ICE in 2024.

Two of the subpoenas from this year were already public knowledge. Last month, Polis directed the labor department to turn over personal information about the sponsors of undocumented children to ICE because, he said, it was part of a criminal investigation.

But a senior department official, Scott Moss, sued. He alleged that compliance would violate state law and that ICE wanted the information to fuel deportations.

Denver Judge A. Bruce Jones ruled that there was no evidence that ICE was actually conducting a criminal investigation and that providing the information to ICE would violate state law.

During the initial hearings in that case, the head of the labor department, Joe Barela, testified that the agency had received another subpoena from ICE in March. He said 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 active federal criminal investigation, we cannot release more details,” wrote Smith, the labor department spokeswoman, in a statement that echoed the same rationale that Polis unsuccessfully leaned on to comply with the more recent request.

Smith did not respond when asked 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 medical leave program.

The advocates who gathered Thursday to protest any cooperation pointed to Moss’ lawsuit and the recent Mesa County arrest of a University of Utah student, who was detained by ICE after a local sheriff’s deputy tipped off federal authorities in a law enforcement group chat. Colorado’s Medicaid authorities were also asked to turn over immigrants’ information to federal health officials; 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 case plays out. In a statement Wednesday, Polis spokeswoman Shelby Wieman said 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 $545, the firm has already billed the state for more than $84,000, according to records reviewed by The Post.

Polis’ office did not return a message seeking comment about the legal bills.

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