Teller County Sheriff’s Office responds to appeals court ruling on ICE agreement

(TELLER COUNTY, Colo.) — Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell believes the current Colorado state legislature is hindering law enforcement’s ability to keep communities safe.

The Teller County Sheriff’s Office (TCSO) held a press conference on Thursday, July 18 regarding the recent Colorado appeals court ruling on its agreement with the federal government’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain suspected illegal immigrants.

According to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), under the “287(g) agreement,” TCSO could hold a person suspected of civil immigration violation in jail past their release date and turn them over to ICE. The ACLU argued that this was against the Colorado Constitution and the law.

READ THE 2019 STORY: Teller County Sheriff and ACLU respond to ongoing lawsuit over 287(g) federal program

In 2019 the sheriff of TCSO, Jason Mikesell, defended the agreement saying the program is not about immigrants but about lawbreakers, and cited an incident where an undocumented man was released from the Teller County Jail and was later involved in a hit-and-run crash.

The ACLU, representing five Teller County taxpayers, filed the lawsuit in 2019, shortly after Colorado enacted a law that forbids state and local law enforcement officers from arresting and detaining persons based on ICE documents that are not signed by a judge. On July 3, 2024, the Colorado Court of Appeals said that Sheriff Mikesell cannot hold immigrants in jail based on requests from ICE.

“Five years ago on this date, I stood up and said I was fighting those issues, for five years, the ACLU and current legislators have tried to attempt to stop me from doing so,” Sheriff Mikesell explains. “In the last several years, they passed laws that they wanted to disguise as different legislative pieces, but really what they were called was the anti-teller laws. They were laws created to stop us from enforcing immigration laws within the state of Colorado in assisting our federal partners.”

The Sheriff continues to defend the agreement saying the program is not about immigrants, but about lawbreakers, and cites an incident where an undocumented man was released from the Teller County Jail and was later involved in a hit-and-run crash.

“This program was intended to enhance public safety by reducing the number of non-criminal, non-citizen offenders released back into our communities and I’m sorry Colorado, but your state legislator has decided that we shouldn’t be able to protect you,” Sheriff Mikesell said.

At Thursday’s press conference, District 1 Teller County Commissioner Dan Williams said he stands with local law enforcement.

“We’re going to continue to fight and we’re going to continue to fund it,” Commissioner Williams explained. “We’re pretty solvent here in Teller County. We’re a debt-free county, but some things are worth fighting for.”

FOX21 reached out to the ACLU for comment and they provided us with the following statement.

“Despite the Sheriff’s rhetoric, most immigrants are hard-working, upstanding people seeking a better life for themselves and their families. The evidence is that immigrants commit fewer crimes than citizens. Our case confirmed that no sheriff in the state of Colorado is above the law. The Colorado Court of Appeals made that clear this month when it put an end to Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell’s efforts to hold immigrants in jail when he had no legal basis to do so, based on nothing more than requests by the federal Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE.) The program wrongfully targeted immigrants at the Teller County jail and while Sheriff Mikesell would like people to believe his unlawful program was only detaining immigrants accused of violent crimes, the reality is people suspected of civil immigration violations were being held in jail — when they should have been released — without legal basis and were eventually turned over to federal ICE agents. The ACLU of Colorado’s case helped protect the rule of law and force the Sheriff to comply with Colorado law that expressly forbids state and local law enforcement officers from arresting or detaining persons based on ICE documents that are not signed by a judge. Holding people in jail, when they should be released, does nothing to keep Coloradans safe. It is an anti-immigrant practice that inflicts harm on all Coloradans and cannot be tolerated.”

Tim Macdonald, ACLU of Colorado Legal Director

Watch a full recording of the press conference with Sheriff Mikesell in the link above.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX21 News Colorado.