Happenings

A federal judge on Friday found a "real risk" that the government would try to unlawfully deport a man who was tortured in his home country, and ordered a hearing to determine if he should be released from immigration custody while his case proceeds.

Per his attorney, RMIAN’s Laura Lunn: “Mr. Maldonado's case is emblematic of everything that's wrong with the immigration system. He survived past torture in El Salvador and Costa Rica and the Department of Homeland Security locked him up without a key," she said. "Today he can breathe a little easier, and I hope that very soon, he will regain his liberty, reunite with his family, and finally live a protected life here in the United States."

With workplace raids and “roving patrols,” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has dramatically ramped up its efforts to apprehend and deport undocumented immigrants in recent weeks throughout major U.S. cities.

“We are setting people up,” RMIAN’s Emily Brock said of the government’s new strategy. “We’re giving people a set of rules they’re told to follow, and then halfway through the game, we’re changing the rules with no notice. And it includes a loss of liberty. … That is an intentional incitement of fear in the community, and it is not what I believe this country stands for.” Full article here.

Image: Damian Dovarganes/AP

On May 30, Frizgeralth de Jesús Cornejo Pulgar was scheduled for a hearing in a United States immigration court. But Cornejo Pulgar—an asylum seeker from Venezuela fleeing potential persecution from paramilitary groups aligned with the government of Nicolás Maduro—was not able to attend the proceeding. The 26-year-old is stuck in El Salvador. He is one of some 230 Venezuelans the Trump administration disappeared, without due process, to the Central American country’s Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT). More here.

The Trump administration dismantled a program that offers legal representation to detained migrants with mental illness or cognitive disabilities. The program, known as the National Qualified Representative Program (NQRP), offered qualified representation to those deemed mentally incompetent to stand trial. Without the program, vulnerable people will face deportation proceedings without legal representation.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained an immigrant who showed up for a hearing at the Federal Immigration Courthouse Friday morning after leaving the courtroom. Article here.

Federal agents detained a family of three after they attended a hearing at Denver Immigration Court on Thursday, part of a spate of courthouse arrests nationwide over the last two weeks as the Trump administration pursues a new strategy aimed at mass detentions. More here.

On May 29, 2025, ICE arrested a family at the Denver Immigration Court family docket. RMIAN has a daily presence at the court, providing information, Know Your Rights presentations, and legal representation to children and families before the court. At the court this morning, a group of ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) officers surrounded a family of three--their toddler was truly terrified. 

RMIAN rejects the idea that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) “wellness checks” have the intention of protecting children; they have the opposite effect.

The "wellness checks" being conducted by various federal law enforcement agencies claim to be about ensuring the safety of children. In reality, these visits are part of an ICE directive to locate and investigate unaccompanied children and their sponsors, threatening family unity for kids, many of whom have experienced abuse, abandonment, and neglect.

Nonprofit legal services organizations are suing the Trump administration to restore a critical national program that provided federal funding for legal representation for people deemed mentally incompetent who are detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

RMIAN and ACLU Colorado want a federal judge to order class-action status, which would protect hundreds of detainees from deportation without due process

The Ira C. Rothgerber Jr. Conference on Constitutional Law is an annual Byron R. White Center event that brings scholars, lawyers, and leaders from across the nation to the University of Colorado Law School to discuss current Constitutional law issue. Topics have included the future of national injunctions, listeners’ First Amendment rights and litigation strategies that promote Constitutional change.

RMIAN Founding Board Member and UCLA Law Professor, Hiroshi Motomura, will provide the keynote address at the conference.

Nine immigrants’ rights organizations, including RMIAN, filed a renewed Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) to block the Trump administration’s termination of critical legal orientation programs for immigrants, including the Family Group Legal Orientation Program, Counsel for Children Initiative, Immigration Court Helpdesk, Legal Orientation Program, and Legal Orientation Program for Custodians. 

A 22-year-old Venezuelan man was transferred to El Salvador despite having no final order of removal from the United States, according to an attorney who appeared in immigration court on his behalf this week.

"I think it is really a miscarriage of justice when individuals are removed from the country when there has been no removal order in their case and the government won't even say where they are," said Monique Sherman, Managing Attorney of the Detention Program at RMIAN.

The closure of the 150-person office, which protected the civil rights of both immigrants and U.S. citizens, strips Homeland Security of its internal guardrails as the Trump administration turns DHS into a mass-deportation machine, analysts say.

“Who do I even go to when there are illegal things happening?” said Laura Lunn, RMIAN’s Director of Advocacy & Litigation.

Denver7: Trump administration cuts legal funding for unaccompanied immigrant children. Full video here.

The Trump administration notified aid organizations across the country on Friday that it would cancel a contract that funds the legal representation of more than 25,000 children who entered the United States alone, a decision that leaves them vulnerable to swift deportation.

The Trump administration has canceled a $200 million legal representation contract for 26,000 children who crossed the U.S. border as unaccompanied minors, potentially leaving the kids to face deportation judges alone.

The administration had briefly halted the program in February but formally canceled it Friday. The national Acacia Center for Justice administered the contract, working with more than 100 local providers, including the Chicago-based National Immigrant Justice Center and the Denver-based Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network. More here.

Today the federal government suddenly and without notice cancelled its contract to provide funding for legal representation to unaccompanied children. This order immediately stops all funding for legal representation of over 26,000 unaccompanied children across the country, including close to 200 children represented by RMIAN in Colorado.

AILA-Colorado, Colorado Bar Association CLE (CBA-CLE), Colorado Lawyers Committee (CLC), and Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network (RMIAN) invite you to a half day CLE on April 9th, 2025, from 12:45 to 4:00PM (approved for 3 general credits). The CLE will be in person (bring your own lunch) at CBA-CLE with a virtual option.

Family Preparedness for Immigrant Families will cover the legal and practical aspects of preparing our clients for possible detention and/or deportation under the new administration. Our leading Colorado experts will present on the nuts and bolts of “family protection plans,” medical powers of attorney, financial powers of attorney, delegations of parental authority, testamentary appointment of guardian forms, the tools available within the Colorado courts to safeguard children, and how to navigate the current climate of fear and uncertainty with our clients. 

RMIAN joins community organizations and elected officials across Colorado in calling for the immediate release of Jeanette Vizguerra, a beloved mother, grandmother, and longtime community leader, after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) unjustly and forcibly took her into custody without warning at her workplace Monday, March 17, 2025 and immediately transferred her to the GEO immigration detention center.

RMIAN condemns the Trump administration’s March 15, 2025 executive order that invokes the Alien Enemies Act to trample fundamental principles of due process and rule of law in our country’s immigration legal system. RMIAN applauds a federal court’s order yesterday blocking the use of this executive order.

The Iliff School of Theology host its March Renewal Session: The Future of Loving our Immigrant Neighbors with RMIAN Executive Director, Mekela Goehring, on Wednesday, March 19, 2025, at 12:00pm MT via Zoom. More on this event and links to registration here.

In Denver, we defend our neighbors. Denver has long been a leader in standing up for ALL our families - regardless of where they were born.

Take Action Now: Sign this petition organized by the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition and let Denver Mayor Mike Johnston him know you support Denver’s commitment to welcoming all people and ensuring that every person — no matter where they were born — can live with dignity and equal rights under the law.

Together, we make Denver stronger.

Denver7 had a conversation with Ashley Harrington, RMIAN Children’s Program Managing Attorney, highlighting the critical role of legal representation in protecting vulnerable children navigating immigration proceedings. Watch the full segment here.

RMIAN celebrates the rescinding of last Tuesday's stop work order for legal services funded through the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) Unaccompanied Children’s Program. Full article here.

Laura Lunn, the Director of Advocacy & Litigation at RMIAN, speaks with USA Today about the lack of information surrounding the recent ICE arrests."This sh ould be terrifying to folks in our country that people are disappearing," says Lunn. "Our federal government is rounding up people in our community and not telling anyone what happened to them."

Today RMIAN celebrates the rescinding of Tuesday's stop work order for legal services funded through the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) Unaccompanied Children’s Program. With this stop work order, the federal government gravely imperiled the ongoing representation of children in immigration proceedings. 

This order affected over 90 legal service providers across the U.S., including RMIAN, which together represent over 26,000 unaccompanied immigrant children in immigration court proceedings. About 160 children in Colorado were impacted by this order, where the federal government halted funding for their legal representation with the stroke of a pen. 

Last week, Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, Black Diaspora Liberty Initiative, Black LGBTQIA+ Migrant Project, Immigration Equality, Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, Sanctuary New Orleans Abolition Project, and the Transgender Law Center filed a joint submission urging the United Nations to denounce widespread abuse of LGBTQ+ people in for-profit immigration detention facilities across the United States.

“Queer and trans immigrants are illegally, systematically, and doubly penalized for their identities – by their countries of origin, from which they escape, and by the U.S., the country that is supposed to protect them,” said Shira Hereld, staff attorney at Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network. “The U.S government and ICE’s treatment of trans immigrants sends a clear and noxious message: for some immigrants, there is no safe quarter anywhere.”

On February 18, 2025, the federal government issued a stop work order for legal services funded through the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) Unaccompanied Children’s Program. This stop work order gravely imperils the ongoing representation of children in immigration proceedings.  

“RMIAN is appalled and outraged that the administration has stopped funding legal representation for unaccompanied children. RMIAN represents hundreds of unaccompanied children--some as young as two-years-old--who would otherwise be forced to navigate the complicated immigration legal system alone. RMIAN's clients include children who have been subjected to child abuse and neglect, trafficking and sexual abuse who fled to the U.S. for safety and protection,” says Ashley Harrington, RMIAN Children’s Program Managing Attorney.  

The distinction between federal law enforcement and civil immigration enforcement exists partly to bolster public safety, current and former prosecutors said. They were joined in that opinion by immigration lawyers who monitored Wednesday’s actions closely or were on the frontlines helping people as they entered detention. 

The community needs to be able to trust law enforcement officers and those officers need to be able to rely on the community — and depending on the crime, sources in the community — to tell them things. 

“If they don’t trust law enforcement, they probably won’t go to them and tell them, hey there is a dangerous thing happening in my neighborhood,” said Laura Lunn, an immigration attorney at the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, who works out of the GEO detention center, which houses immigrants. “When you blur the lines between these different agencies, you are causing distrust within the community of both agencies.”