Human Impact Project

A 32-year-old man identified as G.R.R. was arrested at a Colorado Springs nightclub while waiting to be a designated driver for a friend. He was detained for over six weeks. The ACLU filed a lawsuit on his behalf challenging the arrest as lacking probable cause and part of a pattern of indiscriminate enforcement.

The Colorado Bureau of Investigation opened a criminal investigation into a CBP officer after he grabbed a protester by the hair, put her in a chokehold, and threw her down a grassy embankment outside an ICE facility in Durango. In April 2026, state prosecutors filed third-degree assault and criminal mischief charges against the officer.

ICE agents pointed guns at and smashed the window of a car carrying a couple and their 1-month-old baby in Alamosa on September 24, 2025. The agents arrested Jose Aguilera, 33, from Mexico, who was returning from a court hearing with his partner and infant son. The arrest violated a 2020 Colorado law prohibiting ICE arrests of people going to or coming from courthouses.

In Colorado, after Routt County Commissioner Angelica Salinas recorded agents from her vehicle stopping people and patrolling mobile home parks near Steamboat Springs, she reported that she was followed and boxed in at a nearby post office. Agents left when they saw her husband. An ICE spokesperson later called her account a "blatant and pathetic lie," releasing a photo it said showed her car on a road in Oak Creek, while Salinas maintained that armed, masked agents in unmarked vehicles had been positioned behind and beside her car.

Valeria Pacheco, a 21-year-old UNLV honors psychology student and president of the Español Club, was detained by ICE on Aug. 7 after landing in Denver to visit a friend before the fall semester. She had no criminal record, a valid Social Security number, work authorization, and a pending immigration case, but was held for 35 days at the Aurora ICE Processing Center. Her family and friends organized a GoFundMe that raised $8,866 to support legal fees, and an immigration judge granted her a bond hearing allowing her to return home on Sept. 10, though her legal case remains ongoing.

Dale Heath, a British-born permanent resident who has lived in the U.S. since age 8, was detained by CBP at Denver International Airport on August 4 while renewing his temporary green card. He was arrested due to marijuana possession convictions from 2001 when he was a teenager in Texas. Heath has been held in ICE detention for weeks, separated from his wife and two children, while awaiting his immigration hearing.

Caroline Dias Goncalves, a 19-year-old University of Utah nursing student from Brazil, was detained by ICE on June 5, 2025, following a traffic stop by a Mesa County Sheriff's deputy on Interstate 70 near Fruita, Colorado. The deputy shared information about her in a group chat used for drug interdiction efforts, which ICE agents then used to target her for immigration enforcement. Goncalves, who immigrated to the U.S. at age 7 and has a pending asylum application, was held at an ICE facility in Aurora, Colorado for 15 days, where she reported receiving poor quality food and confusing schedules, and observed differential treatment based on English proficiency. She was released on bond on June 20, 2025, and became a named plaintiff in a class action lawsuit against ICE leadership.

A father leaving a Denver immigration courtroom was grabbed by masked agents and slammed into a counter. His partner, pleading with agents to let him go, was grabbed by the hair and pushed to the ground, while their crying son watched. A legal observer was pushed against a wall and arrested.

Refugio Ramirez Ovando, 43, was arrested in May 2025 while on his way to work at a construction concrete company in Grand Junction. ICE detained him for three months, and an agent later admitted the arrest was a mistake made in an effort to find someone else. The ACLU filed a lawsuit on his behalf challenging the arrest and detention.

Hugo, a father of five and husband of a U.S. citizen veteran who had lived in the U.S. since age 16, was detained by ICE at a courthouse during what should have been a final hearing for permanent residency. Despite being in an active legal process and authorized to be in the U.S., officials ordered him to continue his case from Mexico and deported him. ICE later admitted the detention was a mistake, but Hugo has been separated from his family.

Gladys Yoleida Caricote Tovar, 28, a Venezuelan with Temporary Protected Status and mother of three young children, was arrested in Colorado on December 10, 2024 in front of her mother and children. Her children were placed in foster care and only returned to their grandmother weeks later. On March 15, 2025, she was deported despite a federal judge's order halting deportations. She was told she was being flown to Venezuela but was instead taken to El Salvador, where she was kept on the plane and sent back to the United States the same day. Since returning from El Salvador, she has been held in a Texas detention center where she was beaten a few days ago, covered in bruises, and is locked in solitary confinement following a panic attack.

ICE, DEA, and FBI conducted a raid on Cedar Run Apartments on February 5, 2025, using battering rams and flashbangs to breach units while searching for drug traffickers and targeting migrant families from Venezuela, Colombia, Haiti, and Central America. The operation relied on approximately two dozen administrative warrants and two judicial warrants, but residents reported not being shown or given copies of warrants, raising Fourth Amendment questions about forced entry procedures. Legal experts disputed whether administrative warrants authorize forced entry, while some officials defended the federal agencies' actions as lawful.

Juan, a Mexican national who entered the U.S. legally on a work visa in 2018 and overstayed, was detained by ICE on February 5, 2025, during a raid at Cedar Run Apartments in Denver. He has been held at the Aurora ICE detention facility for over a year. His wife, Lucie Donovan, a U.S. citizen and Denver teacher, married him while detained in September 2025 and has pursued legal avenues including habeas corpus petitions to fight his deportation and obtain a green card, though immigration judges have repeatedly denied bond requests.

A 36-year-old asylum seeker identified as J.S.T. was arrested during a February 2025 raid at an Aurora apartment complex while leaving to head to work. He was detained for four weeks. The ACLU filed a lawsuit on his behalf alleging the arrest lacked proper probable cause determination and was part of a pattern of indiscriminate arrests.

The Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network received a stop-work order from the Trump administration after its federal funding was paused, affecting programs that provide legal orientation and rights information to migrants in immigration proceedings. The Colorado-based nonprofit, which receives approximately 25% of its funding from the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security, argues the federally-funded programs benefit taxpayers by helping people navigate the immigration court system more efficiently. RMIAN has received federal support for about 20 years under multiple administrations and contends that investment in legal orientation reduces costs associated with detention and prolonged court proceedings.