Jefferson County sheriff pushes back on 'misleading' Denver ICE statement

Katie Langford, The Denver Post on Jun 19, 2025

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DENVER — The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office is pushing back against a “misleading” statement posted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Denver field office, which sheriff’s officials say faulted them for following Colorado immigration laws by not coordinating with federal agents before releasing a man from jail.

The Wednesday post on Denver ICE’s X account asked for community assistance finding a 32-year-old man from Honduras who was “released from Jefferson County without being turned over to ICE.”

Sheriff’s officials disagreed with that characterization, posting a lengthy response on the agency’s own X profile and on ICE’s initial post on Thursday afternoon.

“Let’s be clear: we are not legally allowed to directly turn over an inmate to any law enforcement agency without a judicially authorized warrant under Colorado law. That includes ICE,” sheriff’s officials wrote.

The man was initially arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence and the sheriff’s office received an order to release him at 11:52 a.m. Wednesday.

A sheriff’s official spoke to an ICE representative by phone eight minutes later to tell them the man would be released, and ICE said they would not be picking him up, Jefferson County officials wrote.

The man was released from the jail at 2:34 p.m., and ICE never came to the jail, according to the sheriff’s office.

“When we called the ICE Denver office about their misleading post, they made their position unmistakable: if we do not provide ICE extra time to coordinate inmate pickups from our facility, in violation of Colorado law, deceptive posts like yesterday’s will become the norm,” sheriff’s officials wrote.

A spokesperson for the Denver ICE field office could not immediately be reached for comment.

This is not the first time Colorado law enforcement have disputed statements made by the federal agency.

When two men escaped from ICE’s Aurora detention center in March, agency officials said local law enforcement was immediately notified of the escape and “declined to assist with the search.”

But Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain refuted that claim and said staff at the facility did not call 911 to report the escape until nearly five hours after they realized two people were missing.

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