In Denver, lawmakers explore how to counter the force of federal agencies

The early morning darkness had not yet broken when Franci Stagi pulled out a phone to record federal agents as they detained a father and two children. One of the agents batted away her phone. She placed a hand on him. He spun around and grabbed her, wrapping his arms around her neck.

Ms. Stagi, who is 57, described it as a chokehold.

“He had me off the ground,” she recalled. “Two other guys came up, and I thought, ‘Oh my God. This is it. This is the end of my life as I know it. If I’m not killed, I’m maimed. Then he threw me down this embankment.”

The October interaction was a brief but notable incident involving a U.S. citizen observing an immigration enforcement action. Before two Minneapolis residents were gunned down by federal agents, what happened to Ms. Stagi in Durango, a small city in southwest Colorado, offered a glimpse of the problems legislators are now trying to solve.

What can anyone outside the hierarchies of federal agencies do to influence their conduct? Is there any way that local laws can restrain the actions of armed agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, better known as ICE, or Border Patrol?

“Citizens are being murdered. So we can’t do nothing,” said Flor Alvidrez, a Denver city councillor.

Flor Alvidrez is pressing for new legislation to stop federal agents from hiding their faces during raids.Michael Ciaglo/The Globe and Mail

Ms. Stagi still does not know the identity of the masked man who grabbed her with such force and may have left her with long-term shoulder pain. She does not even know which agency he worked for. “When I got attacked, people are like, ‘Are you going to file charges?’ I’m like, ’Against who? I don’t have anyone to file against,’ ” Ms. Stagi said.

Legislation backed by Ms. Alvidrez proposes to change that. It would bar law-enforcement officers from covering their faces while making arrests or enforcing physical restraint. “It seems highly unethical and unconstitutional to not identify who you are and what part of the government you’re with if you’re trying to use government authority over another person,” she said.

On its website, ICE says officers “wear masks to prevent doxing, which can (and has) placed them and their families at risk. All ICE law enforcement officers carry badges and credentials and will identify themselves when required for public safety or legal necessity.”

In Congress, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries has called the unmasking of federal agents a “hard red line” in talks to maintain government funding. Many other Democrat-led legislatures, including California, have proposed similar legislation. Earlier this week, a federal judge blocked the California law, saying it discriminated against the federal government by not applying equally to other levels of law enforcement. California state senators say they will introduce amended legislation.

Denver, snow-free thanks to a winter of record warmth, has spent recent months preparing for a possible ICE surge like the one in Minneapolis.Michael Ciaglo/The Globe and Mail

Democrats hold the majority in the Colorado legislature, as they do in Minnesota’s, hence the speculation that Mr. Trump will single out Denver as he has other blue cities.David Zalubowski/The Associated Press

If a federal surge brings Minneapolis-style protests to Colorado, the Denver Alliance for Street Health Response – which has this anti-ICE poster in their office – is training people to care for the wounded.Michael Ciaglo/The Globe and Mail

At the Denver state legislature, meanwhile, a package of legislation proposes a mask proscription, in addition to a new avenue for civil suits against federal agents and restrictions on data sharing with federal agencies.

Those laws have yet to be passed and may still be tested in court, where they would almost certainly be challenged by a federal administration that has already fought similar measures.

But they have the backing of groups such as Voces Unidas, a Colorado-based advocacy non-profit.

“Even though at the federal level they may have a government that will not charge them for their behaviour, the state crime will never go away,” said Voces Unidas founder Alex Sánchez. And “there’s no president that can pardon people from committing state crimes.”

In Denver, meanwhile, there’s hope that strength will be found in numbers.

“What we do as a city is we pile on with the other jurisdictions that are considering similar measures,” said Kevin Flynn, another Denver city councillor. It is part of “building toward a majority of jurisdictions that push back on these questionable, if not illegal, practices and to try to effect change.”

John Walsh says the events in Minneapolis have been instructive for Denver prosecutors as they anticipate how federal agencies might act here.Michael Ciaglo/The Globe and Mail

How exactly to do that is a question that has reached throughout the justice system. Denver’s district attorney has begun to consider how he would act if a violent deportation surge comes to the city.

“We have already learned a lot from what’s happened in Minneapolis,” said John Walsh, a Democrat who became the city’s lead prosecutor last year.

In Minnesota, federal agencies have shut out local investigators. In Denver, too, the Department of Homeland Security has “kind of gone silent on us,” although working relationships continue with other federal law-enforcement arms, said Mr. Walsh, whose Denver office looks down on the building where he worked as U.S. attorney for Colorado from 2010 to 2016.

It is “just not true” that federal agents enjoy absolute immunity from local laws, he said.

If a federal agent commits a crime, even in the course of their duties, “there is a clear path to prosecuting a crime,” he said. Even if state-level investigators are barred from a crime scene, cellphone video and security camera footage could be used to build a case.

“It’s not a situation where we would say, ‘Officer Lopez, go and arrest this guy.’” But “in the event that there were charges brought, we could manage that.”

Local police in Hudson, Colo., were on hand last month when protesters spoke out against a plan to turn a dormant prison into an ICE detention centre.Kevin Mohatt/Reuters

For local police, though, answers have not come easy – particularly for those who have already experienced conflict with federal agents.

In Durango, officers can’t even work outside their county because of jurisdiction issues, said Brice Current, the city’s police chief.

How, then, can they be expected to confront federal agents based on perceived violations of local laws, he asked, citing the constitutional supremacy clause that gives federal law primacy over other legislation.

“To enforce something that would override the supremacy clause – I have questions,” Chief Current said. “And I just revert those questions back to the lawmakers. My question is: How is that enforceable?”

For now, he has told his officers to stand back from interactions with federal agencies.

But that, too, has proven controversial. In Durango, Ms. Stagi said, people have been left unprotected by their own officers.

“All of the citizens that police are supposed to serve and protect, even from our own government, it’s not happening,” she said.

That has left her feeling vulnerable. After her tussle with the federal agents, she pulled a gun out of storage that she had owned for years but rarely touched.

It now sits beside her bed every night, loaded.

And when someone knocks at her door now, she said, her first thought is: “Oh God. They’re here for me this time.”

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