Gov. Jared Polis has abandoned his nine-month effort to comply with a federal immigration subpoena, arguing that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials no longer appear to need the employment records the governor wants to turn over.
Lawyers representing Polis told a Denver judge on Friday that the governor wants an injunction that would block him from ordering the release of the information indefinitely, which ICE initially requested about a year ago.
If granted, the permanent injunction would end the lawsuit of a former state employee, who sued Polis last year for obstructing compliance with a subpoena. The lawsuit has succeeded – but temporarily – in preventing the release of the records, which include employment details for sponsors of unaccompanied immigrant children who do not have appropriate legal status.
In Friday’s filing, first reported by The Denver Post, Polis’ attorneys noted that ICE officials did not try to intervene in Moss’ lawsuit and took no other action to try to enforce the subpoena. Between that inaction and the “pass of time” since the subpoena was served last April, Polis’ team argued, ICE either did not need the information or its production was no longer urgent.
“We ask the court to put an end to this matter so we can move on,” Police spokesman Eric Maruyama said in a statement Wednesday. “The state will continue to follow the law and cooperate with federal law enforcement in accordance with state and federal law to investigate and combat crimes. While we believe responding to subpoenas is permissible in this case, given the timeframe and lack of additional information from federal agencies, now is the time to move forward.”
Scott Moss, who worked for the state Department of Labor and Employment until last summer and sued in June to block compliance with the subpoena, has not agreed to Polis’ offer. Although they have discussed settlement options in recent months, Moss’ attorneys told Polis’ legal team that they did not have enough time to consider the request before it was filed in court.
Laura Wolf, Moss’ attorney, said in a statement Wednesday that the legal team “is responding substantially to the motion itself.” The state employee union, Colorado WINS, and the nonprofit law firm Towards Justice also joined the lawsuit to challenge Polis’ cooperative efforts with ICE.
“We are pleased that, after nearly ten months of litigation, Governor Polis has finally acknowledged that there is no basis for responding to ICE’s subpoenas for immigration enforcement,” Wolf wrote. “We are also pleased to learn that CDLE will no longer respond to administrative subpoenas without a court order.”
As the case progressed, the state department of labor – or CDLE – changed its policy to effectively block the same subpoenas that Polis had defended for months.
During a January legislative hearing, agency officials told lawmakers they had not received an ICE subpoena since the summer, and they said they had adopted a new policy directing staff to reject subpoenas unless the request was signed by a judge.
In June, Denver District Court Judge A. Bruce Jones told Polis that complying with the subpoena would likely violate state laws that generally prohibit sharing data with federal immigration authorities – unless the information is part of a criminal investigation.
The governor continued to argue that he was able to release some of the information because he believed ICE’s claims that it wanted to check the welfare of the children. Jones pointed out that no evidence was presented to support the claim. Moss argued that the subpoena, which cited laws related to civil immigration enforcement, was intended solely to encourage deportation.
Because attorneys with the Colorado Attorney General’s Office did not represent Polis, the governor incurred private legal fees that topped $110,000 earlier this month, according to records obtained by The Post. His office did not immediately respond when asked whether the governor had directed the use of state resources to test the children.
The state Department of Labor complied with three ICE subpoenas last year, including one that agency officials said they should have refused. The subpoena Moss challenged was not signed by a judge.
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