ICE ‘Noncompliant’ With Court Order To Stop Illegal Warrantless Arrests In Colorado, Judge Says

By Chase Woodruff, Colorado Newsline

Posted May 14, 2026

A federal judge in Denver on Tuesday said that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in Colorado have continued to make warrantless arrests in violation of federal law and a November injunction ordering the agency to halt the practice.

In a new 30-page order, Judge R. Brooke Jackson of the U.S. District Court of Colorado directed ICE to implement new training and reporting procedures to address its “manifest noncompliance” with the preliminary injunction he issued in November. ICE officers in Colorado, he wrote then, were “routinely” violating federal law by making warrantless arrests without showing probable cause that the individual poses a flight risk.

“The Court finds that defendants have demonstrated material noncompliance with the (preliminary injunction order) and relief at this juncture is warranted and necessary,” Jackson wrote.

The lawsuit, which names the Trump administration’s top immigration officials as defendants, was filed last year by the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado on behalf of four plaintiffs who alleged they were subjected to unlawful immigration arrests — including Caroline Dias Goncalves, a Utah nursing student arrested by federal immigration agents in Mesa County after an incidental traffic stop by a sheriff’s deputy.

As the case proceeded, ACLU attorneys documented arrests in December 2025 and January 2026 showing that officers from ICE’s Denver field office continued to flout the law in violation of Jackson’s order.

In at least two separate encounters during that period, officers made warrantless arrests of a total of five individuals, none of whom were ICE targets. One encounter began when, officers wrote, they observed “three Hispanic male(s) speaking Spanish” and an officer believed one individual “matched the description” of their target. The other encounter “unfolded in almost identical fashion,” Jackson wrote.

Prior to the arrests, officers did not make any individualized flight-risk determinations, which involve asking individuals about factors like their community ties, family circumstances, employment and prior court attendance. Jackson’s November injunction ordered ICE to document, for each warrantless arrest, “the specific, particularized facts supporting the conclusion that the person was likely to escape before a warrant could be obtained,” and to make that documentation available for regular inspection by the plaintiffs and the court, as part of its so-called I-213 arrest records.

“The (preliminary injunction) could not have been clearer,” Jackson’s order says. “Despite this, not one of the 36 I-213s that have been produced pursuant to the PI Order complies with this mandate. Nor do they comply with other documentation requirements.”

ICE’s Denver field office did not immediately return a request for comment Tuesday.

‘Field warrants’

In at least one other case, ICE officers belatedly claimed to have obtained a so-called administrative warrant, or field warrant, for the arrest of a 53-year-old citizen of Mexico — “a married father of three who has lived, worked, and paid taxes in the United States for nearly 30 years with no contact with the criminal legal system,” Jackson wrote. The record shows that the man was placed under arrest before the field warrant was issued.

“At least on some occasions, arrests that ICE claims are made pursuant to field warrants are, in fact, warrantless,” Jackson said.

In his second term, President Donald Trump has pledged to carry out the “largest domestic deportation operation in American history,” aiming to remove all of the estimated 12 million immigrants in the country without permanent legal status, regardless of how long they have been in the country, the legal status of their family members or whether they have criminal records.

In a two-day evidentiary hearing held in March, several employees of the Denver ICE office testified in the case, including two officers — identified only by their initials, J.B. and J.L. — alleged to have made several warrantless arrests in December and January. The testimony the officers, both of whom joined the agency in 2021, of “clearly do not know or understand” lawful protocols regarding arrests without a warrant, the court found.

“Officer J.B.’s testimony gives the Court no confidence that he understood his legal responsibilities with respect to effecting and documenting warrantless arrests before the PI Order or that he understands them now,” wrote Jackson. “And like J.B., with whom he often partners for enforcement operations … Officer J.L. could not convincingly articulate his duties for making and documenting warrantless arrests.”

Tuesday’s ruling orders ICE to conduct detailed trainings on the requirements of the court’s injunction for “every immigration officer currently authorized to make warrantless arrests” within the next 45 days, and to provide additional reporting and documentation to the plaintiffs that such training is taking place.

Chase Woodruff is a senior reporter for Colorado Newsline. This article is republished from Colorado Newsline under a Creative Commons license. Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.