Sanctuary city whack-a-mole: Same policy, different ZIP code

On Oct. 9, House Judiciary Republicans released a staff report on Colorado alleging that Denver’s sheriff ignored detainers from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement this year for people charged with crimes ranging from felony assault with a deadly weapon to sexual assault on a child.

The report names Fernando Barrios-Ramirez, a Venezuelan national accused of sexual assault on a child and kidnapping. He is presumed innocent. The report comes from the majority party, offering allegations and no victim count. No court has weighed in.

The question still stands: Why would any jail release a foreign national with an immigration detainer facing charges like these without a clean handoff to federal agents?

Congress has examined Fairfax County and Arlington County in Virginia and has now turned to Denver and Boulder. Whack one mole, and another pops up in the next blue county with the same policy and the same defense.

My thesis is that elected sheriffs and prosecutors owe their first duty to the residents who put them in office. When a policy protects accused violent offenders from a federal handoff, those officials should either defend that policy in public with data or else change it.

A sheriff isn’t a trustee in the legal sense, but the principle still applies. Marcus Aurelius wrote it in one line: “That which is not good for the swarm, neither is it good for the bee.” Sanctuary politics protect one bee at the swarm’s expense.

A detainer is a request from ICE that no judge has signed. Colorado law bars local officers from holding someone solely on an ICE detainer, so the sheriffs who cite the law have a point. The real fight, therefore, is over the handoff.

On Feb. 28, 2025, Denver told ICE, with about 60 minutes’ notice, that it was releasing Abraham Gonzalez Romero, an alleged member of the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua prison gang. Mayor Mike Johnston later testified that six ICE agents showed up on the scene to pick him up. Federal prosecutors say that, as the Venezuelan national left the jail, he jumped a handrail and ran into an officer. Both fell. Gonzalez was charged with assaulting a federal officer. He is presumed innocent.

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) asked why Denver had not released Gonzalez directly to ICE. He argued for a mandatory 48 hours’ notice when defendants with ICE detainers are released. That is a fair request, as an arrest made inside a secure jail is a lot safer to the public than a foot chase on a public sidewalk.

The prosecutor’s office is the second mole. The report says that a 2019 Denver policy directs prosecutors to mitigate immigration consequences, even in violent felony cases, and that District Attorney John Walsh has kept weighing those consequences. The committee’s complaint is that citizens charged with the same crime do not get softball plea-deals shaped by their risk of deportation.

Equal justice under law is supposed to mean something, and it isn’t that government discriminates against citizens in favor of illegal aliens.

Boulder District Attorney Michael Dougherty, who is running for attorney general, calls the report “a political stunt.” Jordan retorts that Dougherty has produced no documentation to back up his side of the story. Louis Brandeis wrote that sunlight is the best disinfectant. If these policies protect public safety, then let’s have Dougherty post the charging guidelines, the detainer log, the release times, and then an account of what happened to each person after release.

Walsh warns that mandatory reporting would erode trust between immigrant communities and police, which matters when victims and witnesses decide whether to call. The trust concern is real for a domestic violence victim dialing 911. But it doesn’t reach a jail cell, because a suspect charged with a violent felony is not a witness.

A March 2025 Pew Research Center survey found that 97 percent of Democrats who favor some but not all deportations support removing illegal aliens who have committed violent crimes.

Courts won’t settle this. DeShaney v. Winnebago County held in 1989 that a state’s failure to protect someone from private violence does not violate the Due Process Clause. Imbler v. Pachtman gave prosecutors absolute immunity from federal civil-rights damages suits in 1976.

That leaves the ballot box and Congress.

Colorado voters get the first swing on Nov. 3. Amendment 81 would require law enforcement to notify the Department of Homeland Security within 72 hours of charging someone with a violent crime, or someone with a prior felony conviction, if the person is in the country illegally or his or her status cannot be determined. It requires 55 percent to pass.

The League of Women Voters opposes it over the presumption of innocence and the risk of error.

Congress can also do something. It can move on the Shut Down Sanctuary Policies Act, which the Judiciary Committee passed on March 5. It would allow the victims of those released by sanctuary jurisdictions to sue for damages. Federal officials can meet Colorado’s law halfway, because the state limits honoring detainers unless federal officials present a judge-signed warrant or order. Seek a judge’s signature in every violent case and press for 48 hours notice instead of 60 minutes.

Sanctuary officials have spent years explaining whom their policies protect. The accused, they say, are safe and welcome. Fine, but residents would like to hear who is looking after them.

Congress will keep swinging at moles, because the holes are endless. The lasting fix belongs to the voters who hire these officials, and Colorado’s turn comes Nov. 3.

Jay Rogers is a financial professional with more than 30 years of experience in private equity, private credit, hedge funds, and wealth management.