Three Colorado sheriff’s department employees — two deputies and a sergeant — were suspended without pay for violating a new sanctuary state law that prohibits them from sharing information with federal immigration agents.
Mesa County Sheriff Todd Rowell took the action after an internal review of events leading up to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention of Utah college student Caroline Dias-Goncalves last month.
The 19-year-old nursing student from Brazil was pulled over by Deputy Alexander Zwinck in a traffic stop on June 5 after she was allegedly tailgating a semi-truck.
The deputy released Dias-Goncalves with a warning. But 20 minutes later, ICE agents stopped her and arrested her for an expired visa.
According to the sheriff, Zwinck had shared her location and a description of her vehicle in a group chat that included ICE agents.
The deputy belonged to a drug task force made up of law enforcement from the city of Grand Junction and various state and federal agencies.
ICE then took the student to a detention facility. Immigration services detained her for 15 days before she was released on bond.
In a lengthy statement on the matter, Rowell apologized for the agency’s involvement and said three sheriff’s office employees “acted outside of agency policy.”
The sheriff conducted the review after Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser sued Deputy Zwinck last week.
The review revealed that task force member Erik Olson also shared immigration information with federal agents.
Zwinck was placed on three weeks of unpaid leave, Olson was on two weeks of unpaid leave, and both were removed from the task force and assigned to patrol. A third officer, Sgt. Joe LeMoine, was suspended for two days.
Zwinck and Olson reportedly told officials that they believed they were following standard procedures and were not aware of the new law.
Democrat Gov. Jared Polis had just signed the new measure two weeks before Dias-Goncalves’ arrest. It banned police from sharing identifying information about people with federal immigration officials.
Previously, only state agencies were prevented from sharing such information, Fox News reported.
Even before the new law, as Breitbart News reported, the Trump administration had a lawsuit pending against Colorado for sanctuary policies that hamper immigration enforcement in the state. It was filed in May.
While Sheriff Rowell condemned the violations of the new law, he was also critical of the lawsuit filed against Deputy Zwinck by the state attorney general before his internal probe was completed, saying it sent “a demoralizing message to law enforcement officers across Colorado.”
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