Two years later, that margin landed at a still-slender 2,449 votes. Advantage: Republican.

Political watchers expect another close call in November, given the politically competitive makeup of the four-year-old district that stretches from Denver’s northern suburbs to Greeley and Larimer County. But who will end up victorious in the 8th District, which , is where people are laying their bets.

“It’s in the top 10 pickup opportunities for Democrats,” said Erin Covey, the U.S. House editor for the Cook Political Report. “Democrats only need to flip three seats to take control of the House. This is going to be on the front lines of the Republican defense.”

Three Democratic challengers have emerged from a field that just a few months ago was twice as large. They are state Rep. Manny Rutinel, attorney and former state Rep. Shannon Bird, and Evan Munsing, a former U.S. Marine and an investment firm adviser.

They must battle it out amongst themselves in the June 30 primary before one of them goes on to face freshman Rep. Gabe Evans in the Nov. 3 general election.

On paper, things look tough for Evans, a former state lawmaker himself.

Historically, midterm elections have gone poorly for the party that occupies the White House. Democratic victories in gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey last November — and — may be a harbinger of things to come.

“It should be a good cycle for Democrats,” Covey said.

Add to that mix a polarizing president with , an uncertain economy and chaotic recent scenes from Minneapolis, where two protesters were fatally shot by federal agents last month during an immigration crackdown.

The main strategy for the Democratic field in the 8th District is clear: Make it about Trump.

“Gabe Evans has a track record of doing what Donald Trump wants, even if it hurts our district,” Bird said. “We have a current representative who is rolling over for this administration.”

Rutinel said Evans is “just interested in going along.”

“Trump says jump, and Gabe Evans says how high,” he said.

Evans said that’s not true. He points to a letter he and other GOP members of Congress sent to President Trump in October from Argentina. He has also advocated a different approach from the administration to dealing with migrants who are in the country illegally.

Democratic hopefuls in the race would be wise to restrain their most progressive impulses, said Robert Pruehs, a political science professor at Metropolitan State University of Denver. Elections in Colorado’s 8th District have very much turned on candidates successfully wooing independents, the district’s largest voting bloc.

“You need to have a broad coalition in this kind of district,” he said. “The unaffiliated voters in the general election are going to demand some moderation.”

Rutinel, who has lived in Commerce City for five years, says the race is “personal for me.” He was brought up by a single mother in a house that was foreclosed on during the Great Recession. At 31, he is the youngest candidate in the race. He sees a piece of himself in the district’s working-class voters.

Of the Democratic contenders, Bird, 56, has had by far the longest tenure — 25 years — in what became the 8th District, Colorado’s newest seat in Congress, when it was drawn following the 2020 census. A former Westminster city councilwoman and a state lawmaker since 2019 — she resigned last month to focus fully on her congressional campaign — Bird was also brought up by a single mom. Tips from her grandmother’s casino dealer job in Reno, Nevada, sustained the family, she said.

As the only Democratic candidate with military experience, Munsing said he would be the best choice to take on Evans, a former Army Blackhawk helicopter pilot who served in the Middle East. Munsing, 37, was deployed to Afghanistan in 2013.

“If we want to go toe-to-toe with him, we need a veteran and a businessman,” said Munsing, who has lived in the district for about a year.

Covey, with the Cook Political Report, said the frontrunner position in the Democratic race is as yet unfilled. Rutinel , but there’s still a long way to go until the end of June, she said.

“I would say this race is pretty wide open,” Covey said.

Immigration at the crux

Immigration policy will likely be one of the more salient issues in the 8th Congressional District race.

The district has the highest proportion of Latinos among Colorado’s eight congressional districts, with about 40% of the population identifying as such when it was created. Weld County is home to numerous large farms and food production businesses that hire immigrant workers — including the U.S. headquarters of JBS, part of the world’s largest meatpacking company.

“The real issue is, how is Gabe Evans going to respond to ICE activity over the next eight months?” Pruehs said. “The onus is on the Evans campaign to distance him from the Trump administration.”

Evans, 39, of Fort Lupton, believes the priority should be on the apprehension of those who are in the country illegally and have committed crimes. As Trump’s mass-deportation efforts ramped up in his first few months back in the White House, Evans joined five members of the Congressional Hispanic Conference in sending a letter to ICE leadership expressing concern “that your limited resources may be stretched to pursue individuals that do not constitute an immediate threat to public safety.”

In an interview with The Denver Post last week, Evans said he has been “very consistent on immigration.”

“Secure the border, go after the bad guys and have some sort of pathway forward for the people who aren’t causing problems and are integrated into our economy,” he said.

But that’s not what’s happening, said Rutinel, who has called for impeaching Kristi Noem, Trump’s Homeland Security secretary. Her department oversees ICE.

“People voted for order, security and safety — instead they’re getting chaos and danger,” he said. “What’s happening under the Trump administration should terrify every American.”

Munsing says Evans hasn’t been nearly loud enough in highlighting the abuses committed by ICE agents and other officers involved in immigration crackdowns, including the “deeply troubling” deaths of protesters Renée Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis last month. He said ICE agents are poorly trained and have .

“We need to get rid of warrantless arrests. Racial profiling and indiscriminate arrests based on how people look and their accent has been very troubling to people here,” Munsing said. “We should fire all these people who were hired since Trump got into office and bring the (ICE) budget back to where it was in 2024.”

Evans, a former police officer, said he opposes ICE agents entering homes without a search warrant.

“I was a cop for 10 years — you got to have a search warrant to go into a house,” he said. “So I disagree with the ICE memo that says they don’t need a search warrant to go into houses.”

On the first anniversary of the start of Trump’s second term on Jan. 20, the Department of Homeland Security that 70% of those arrested by ICE were “convicted criminals or have criminal charges.” During Trump’s first year back, the agency said, ICE arrested more than 43,000 people who posed a potential national security risk and apprehended more than 1,400 known or suspected terrorists. It has made 7,000 gang arrests, according to the administration.

Earlier this month, CBS News it obtained revealed that less than 14% of nearly 400,000 immigrants arrested by ICE in Trump’s first year had charges or convictions for violent criminal offenses. Other watchdog groups and news organizations that have scrutinized ICE data have questioned the administration’s characterizations of those arrested, too.

But Evans’ said the CBS report was “100% muddying the waters,” given that offenses like distribution of child pornography, human smuggling, drug dealing, burglary and drunken driving fall into the nonviolent category.

Bird said the idea that ICE can’t adhere to the law when apprehending criminals who are in the country illegally is a “false choice.”

“ICE needs to be held to the exact same standards as every other law enforcement agency,” she said.

While immigration enforcement may be a difficult issue for Evans, the congressman might gain political traction by turning to the nation’s plummeting crime rate.

According to a January report from the , homicides were down 21% in 2025 compared to President Joe Biden’s final year in office, while there were 9% fewer aggravated assaults, 22% fewer gun assaults and 2% fewer domestic violence incidents.

Evans’ Democratic opponents say that improvement has little to do with Trump.

“Nice job for trying to take credit for something that happened at the state level,” Bird said, citing her support for bills in the state house that clamped down on auto and catalytic converter theft.

Evans scoffed at the former state lawmaker’s assertion.

“Gee, what happened across the country starting in 2025?” he said. “It’s not because under Joe Biden, blue cities forgot how to police — and then under Trump, blue cities all of a sudden started policing again. It’s because of federal law enforcement going after the known bad guys, the professional bad guys, the cartels, the drug dealers, the organized criminals.”

Prices, tariffs also in play

Perceptions of the economy’s health will undoubtedly take center stage this fall, Covey said, and Evans’ fate — and that of the party in power — will be tied to its performance.

The inflation rate has fallen sharply from its peak of 9% in 2022, and it more than some economists expected. But what matters is how voters feel about their financial situations come fall.

“The economy more broadly is going to be the driving issue,” she said. “A lot of people are dissatisfied with the way Trump is handling the economy as opposed to his first term.”

Affordability, Bird said, is the top concern she hears from voters while campaigning. That includes prices at the grocery store, but more notably a projected doubling of health insurance premiums for the 320,000 Coloradans who had been receiving now-expired enhanced pandemic-era subsidies on the individual marketplace.

Meanwhile, Trump’s tariff policies have been at the heart of the cost-of-living problem, she said.

“For our ranchers and farmers, there’s a fear of retaliatory tariffs and trade wars,” Bird said.

In a momentous decision Friday, the Supreme Court struck down the sweeping “reciprocal” tariffs the president had levied on nearly every other country last spring. The majority found that the Constitution “very clearly” gives Congress the power to impose taxes, which include tariffs.

Rutinel, who worked as an economist for the Army Corps of Engineers, said the residents of the 8th District have been paying the price for Trump’s import taxes.

“You don’t have to be a trained economist to see how tariffs are essentially a natural sales tax on all consumers and that they will bear the brunt of the costs,” Rutinel said. “What the folks in the district are telling me is they feel they’ve been lied to.”

This month, the nonpartisan Tax Foundation calculated that Trump’s tariffs of $1,000 per American household in 2025, an amount projected to increase to $1,300 this year.

While inflation has been tamed from the runaway prices under the previous administration, Munsing said the impacts of the White House’s tariffs are still working their way through the economy. Businesses, along with farmers and ranchers in the 8th District, are having trouble planning the year out because of the uncertainty, he said.

“They’re getting to the point where they have to pass these costs along,” Munsing said. “They survived COVID, they survived supply chain disruptions — and they are hearing from customers who are worried about prices going up.”

For Evans, Covey thinks he had a “potentially missed opportunity to separate himself from the president.” He chose not to join fellow Colorado Republican U.S. Rep. Jeff Hurd, who — along with five GOP House members — that Trump has used as the basis for imposing tariffs on Canada.

Evans said that while tariffs are challenging for the agriculture and ranching sectors, lopsided trade arrangements that hurt American producers are no better.

“So yeah, long term, big picture: I’m totally a free trade guy, but free trade has to be fair trade,” he said.

June 30 primary comes first

Before a Democrat can face off against Evans this November, they have to face off against each other in June.

Rutinel, who was first to jump into the race at the beginning of 2025, has raised the most money of the three — with $2.5 million taken in as of the end of 2025. Bird has raised $1.2 million and Munsing has collected nearly $500,000.

The race has gelled in recent months as other candidates have dropped out, including Colorado Treasurer Dave Young; Amie Baca-Oehlert, the former president of the state’s largest teachers union; and former U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo, the first person to hold the seat.

Evans has one challenge from his own party. But that candidate, Adam Derito, has raised less than $30,000 to Evans’ more than $3 million haul.

Among the Democrats, Munsing fired the first big campaign salvo this month.

He accused Bird of being too soft on ICE by voting against a 2025 bill in the state House. Senate Bill 276 attempted to further curtail federal immigration authorities’ access to public spaces in Colorado — from government buildings to libraries to public schools — and limited local governments’ ability to share information with those authorities.

“Shannon Bird continues to bury her head in the sand and hope that voters are not going to pay attention to the vote that even perplexed her colleagues in the state legislature,” his campaign wrote in a Feb. 12 news release.

Last week, Rutinel weighed in on SB-276 too, saying he co-sponsored the law “to protect our immigrant neighbors from ICE brutality.” He said he and his Democratic colleagues were “severely disappointed that Shannon Bird was the only House Democrat to vote against it.”

Bird said her “no” vote on SB-276 happened during a committee hearing on the bill. She thought the bill needed improvement before getting her support, she said. When the bill came up for a vote on the full floor of the House a few weeks later, she was absent due to a family medical emergency.

“It was one of the few votes I missed, and I regret that,” Bird said.

She said she would have voted yes on the final go-around.

With Rutinel having been elected to the state House only once and Munsing having no experience in public office, Bird said she is the most viable candidate to defeat Evans in November.

“I’m the only one in this race to win a contested election and to do it five times,” she said.

Pruehs, the political science professor, said the Democratic candidates can stake out positions on the left up until the primary election. Then, in a district so evenly divided along partisan lines, they will need to artfully and nimbly steer to the political middle as November draws closer.

“There is a need to make sure your message isn’t so far afield that you can’t attract more moderate voters,” he said.

Young, who is in his second term as state treasurer, cited a family member’s “serious health situation” for why he’s leaving the congressional race.

“My family must come first, and stepping back from this race to care for my family, as well as continuing to fulfill my duties as state treasurer, is the responsible choice,” Young said in a statement.

Young’s withdrawal leaves three Democrats seeking the nomination to take on Republican U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans. He had trailed all of them in fundraising.

State Rep. Manny Rutinel holds a distinct fundraising advantage over the remaining Democrats, having raised more than $2 million — double the total of the next-closest candidate. State Rep. Shannon Bird recently announced she would resign her seat in the legislature to fully commit to the race. Marine veteran Evan Munsing is also seeking the Democratic nomination.

The 8th Congressional District, which stretches from the northern Denver suburbs to Greeley, was drawn to be one of the most competitive districts in the country, and it’s potentially the key to which political party controls the House in 2027.

The district was created following the 2020 census. Evans, who unseated Democrat Yadira Caraveo in 2024, is trying to be the first person to be reelected to represent the district.

Colorado is teetering on the brink of a fiscal crisis, and the recent federal government shutdown offers a stark warning of what could lie ahead. We narrowly averted a hunger emergency due to delayed federal funding. Now, we face the specter of 100,000 Coloradans losing healthcare coverage as federal insurance premium tax credits expire.

The state has acted quickly to address these problems. Gov. Jared Polis and the General Assembly authorized $10 million to support food banks, and voter support for Propositions LL and MM will help backfill some Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) funding. For our part, the Colorado Treasury just kicked off a tax credit sale that will raise $100 million in state revenue.

Unfortunately, these solutions aren’t nearly as big or ambitious enough to tackle the looming crisis ahead, caused by H.R. 1’s cost shifting to states. Over the coming years, our General Fund could be hit with up to a $3 billion burden for SNAP and Medicaid alone. Compounding this, federal tax code changes are projected to strip $2.6 billion in state revenue through FY 28. This onslaught comes on top of Colorado’s recent budget shortfall driven by Medicaid costs generated at the state level.

I spent 25 years teaching junior high math before running for office, but you don’t need to be a math teacher to understand the depth of our fiscal woes. We need an active, aggressive legislature to push back on this austerity agenda.

First, Medicaid. Those of us who deal with the program in our personal lives know that our state’s Medicaid agency, the Department of Health Care Policy and Finance (HCPF), can and should provide services more efficiently and effectively. That����ap because HCPF operates like an insurance company, not like a service agency.

The people who work for HCPF are well-intentioned, but too often we hear that the only way to reduce health care costs is to ration and cut needed services. I fear this approach has taken the upper hand in the governor’s most recent budget proposal, and it played out in the budget balancing work he put forth following the recent special session.

Over the long term, this results in higher costs and risks terrible outcomes. For example, early intervention for young children with autism and other disabilities makes a huge difference for them later in life. If we continue to slash the provider rate, more facilities will close because they aren’t earning enough to keep their businesses open. That means more children will forego the services they need, leading to much more extensive and expensive services later in life.

The same goes for retirement. Reducing state support for the Colorado Public Employee Retirement Association (PERA) by up to $38 million — money that should be invested —pushes PERA’s finances in the wrong direction. This one-time reduction will result in a $180 million opportunity cost long term, putting pressure on current retirees and employees while further delaying our obligation to make PERA whole. As with Medicaid, cuts today hurt Coloradans tomorrow.

Austerity has also choked our revenue stream. Our current approach has placed a vice grip on state and local economies. Agencies and departments across the state barely have enough to keep the lights on. It is time to level with Colorado voters: without significant funding increases, the state government will soon be unable to provide the most basic services for a livable Colorado.

I believe that we can break free from this scarcity trap. I strongly support a new graduated income tax proposal put forth by Protect Colorado’s Future. By asking Colorado’s billionaires and millionaires — just two percent of the population — to pay their fair share, we can generate $2.4 billion in annual revenue going forward. This measure would stave off immediate cuts and help us plan for a sustainable future.

We should also look at our state’s severance tax, which lags woefully behind other Western states. Despite lower oil and gas production, Wyoming generates more than twice the severance tax revenue. Modernizing our tax codes — and investing those dollars in Coloradans’ health and dignity — is the responsible way out of this mess.

In this upcoming legislative session, the General Assembly must do more than raise tough questions. They must assert their constitutional authority to protect children, the elderly, and the disabled, and they must use their platform to advance meaningful tax reform. Otherwise, the ordeal we experienced together a short while ago risks becoming our day-to-day reality.

Dave Young of Greeley is the Colorado State Treasurer and an ex officio member of Colorado PERA board.

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Bird, a Westminster Democrat, announced her decision to resign on Sunday. Her last day in the legislature will be Jan. 5, nine days before the 2026 legislative session begins. In a statement posted to social media, Bird thanked her constituents and said she needed to focus on flipping the Republican-held 8th Congressional District.

“Now, Colorado is facing rising headwinds from Washington, with (President Donald) Trump’s tariffs driving up the cost of everything, health care and food assistance being ripped away by (U.S. Rep.) Gabe Evans and his GOP colleagues, and our democratic values under assault,” Bird wrote.

Evans is the Republican who unseated then-Rep. Yadira Caraveo, a Democrat, to represent the 8th District.

Bird had already resigned from the legislature’s Joint Budget Committee. She remains to challenge Evans, a first-term congressman whose district extends from the northern Denver suburbs to Greeley.

Rep. Manny Rutinel, Bird’s state House colleague, is also vying for the Democratic nomination, as is state Treasurer Dave Young and Marine veteran Evan Munsing.

Rutinel, who entered the race months before Bird, has thus far raised more money than her. He had more than $1 million in the bank as of the end of September, compared to Bird’s $560,000. A lesser-known candidate, Munsing had more than $174,000 on hand by summer’s end. Young is farther behind, with more than $61,000 in the bank.

Bird, who was term-limited from running again in the state House, will be replaced through a Democratic vacancy committee. Her replacement will serve through the November election.

A state report released in September said the initial impact of tariffs on the beef industry could result in a drop of nearly $39 million in revenue the first half of the year compared to 2024; 265 fewer direct and indirect jobs; and a decline of $80 million in economic output in Colorado.

The administration, dealing with growing questions about the effect of its trade policies on agriculture, announced Wednesday that it will despite the government shutdown to help farmers access $3 billion from existing programs.

The decision follows to lower high beef prices for U.S. consumers. The idea is creating further angst in the charged economic and political climate and is drawing flack from farm organizations, among his strongest supporters, and some

Wednesday. He said U.S. ranchers are doing well because he has put tariffs on beef imports.

Chad Franke, president of the  doesn’t support the proposal. “It’s not good for American beef producers. For the last five years at least, American beef producers have made little to no money,”

But ranchers in Colorado and nationwide have started to make what Franke called fair returns as beef prices have risen. Drought and other factors have contributed to smaller herd numbers, driving up beef’s value.

Importing more beef from Argentina will affect U.S. ranchers, but likely won’t make much of a dent in prices at the grocery store, Franke said. He said the beef, which would be frozen, is leaner and would likely be mixed with domestically produced ground beef.

Beef is Colorado’s top agricultural export and made up the bulk of the industry’s total exports of $2.7 billion in 2024. Other key exports are dairy, wheat, vegetables and feed grain.

Overall, for the Colorado economy.

Derrell Peel, a professor of agricultural economics at Oklahoma State University, told the earlier this week that about 2.1% of the total U.S. beef imports have come from Argentina this year. He doesn’t believe that increased imports would significantly affect U.S. beef prices.

But bringing more Argentine beef to the U.S. will cause “chaos and confusion” in the domestic beef markets and undercut cattle producers, state Sen. Dylan Roberts, a Frisco Democrat, and state Rep. Karen McCormick, a Longmont Democrat, said in a statement Tuesday.

They head the agriculture and natural resources committees in their respective chambers.

The urged the Trump administration to not intervene in the domestic beef market.

“While beef prices have risen, consumer demand for U.S. beef remains strong, thanks to the dedication of American cattlemen and women who have consistently delivered safe, high-quality products,” the group said on its Facebook page.

‘It’s been all over the board’

Ranchers in Colorado and across the country aren’t just concerned about the economic fallout of increasing imports from Argentina, said Amanda Countryman, an agricultural and resource economics professor at Colorado State University.

“There are also real concerts about food safety, quality and also animal health concerns,” Countryman said. “The health and safety standards are different in Argentina than they are in the U.S.”

There is a history of foot and mouth disease, a viral illness, among cattle in Argentina, Countryman added.

To lower beef prices in the U.S., the country’s cattle numbers will have to increase, Countryman said. “The U.S. is such a large beef consumer, and we’re so heavily dependent on domestic production, that we’re going to have to have a domestic supply response. It will take time.”

Countryman said beef prices rose by 14% from 2024 to 2025. the past few years because of low cattle numbers, The Associated Press reported.

Colorado’s herd size of 2.5 million Jan. 1, 2025, tied with 2014 and 2015 for the state’s third-lowest total number over the past 50 years, said Rodger Ott,regional director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service.

Among the drivers behind smaller herds are the availability of food in the drought-stricken West and the cost of feed, Countryman said. Farmers and ranchers have also been battling low commodity prices and higher prices for equipment and supplies, including fertilizer. Countryman said global fertilizer prices are 15% higher than they were in 2024.

Much of the fertilizer used in the U.S. comes from Canada.

Equipment, parts and repairs have increased, said Franke of the Rocky Mountain Farmers. One example is the price of tires for tractors. Tires for a certain type of tractor were about $1,500 apiece 10 years ago.

“Now, some of them are $5,000 per tire,” Franke said.

What’s difficult is sorting out whether tariffs, inflation or a mix of factors are boosting costs, Franke said. Because it’s not a big soybean producing state, Colorado doesn’t face the current problems of China’s clampdown on buying U.S. soybeans as part of the ongoing trade war.

But Franke figures the higher import taxes on various products will ripple through the agriculture economy for a while. And an immediate effect of the administration’s policies has been the uncertainty. Franke said producers have to make long-term decisions about which crops to plant and whether to expand sheep and cattle herds, but tariffs and the threat of countries imposing retaliatory duties add a new layer of complexity.

“It’s been all over the board. We don’t not support tariffs, but they need to be done in a thoughtful and methodical way,” Franke said.

On top of trade issues, the agricultural community has dealt with the freezing of federal money for various programs. Franke said some people paid for work or items and then were left on the hook. Banks got nervous when people didn’t have the funds when anticipated.

The funds are flowing again.

“But cash flow makes as big of a difference as profit and loss in a small business,” Franke said. “If you don’t have cash on hand when you need it, it doesn’t matter if you’re profitable or not. If you can’t pay your bills, you’re not going to continue.”

Franke and Colorado State Treasurer Dave Young were among the speakers in a recent call with reporters on how tariffs are affecting agriculture in the region. Young said higher costs paid by farmers and ranchers and the uncertainty they’re experiencing reverberate across communities.

“It’s time to restore stability to our trade relationships and ensure that policies support, not punish, the hard-working families who feed our nation,” Young said.

The convicted murderer had found nearly “perfect sanctuary” in Denver, Immigration and Customs Enforcement claimed, “until ICE officers found him.”

But Carranza-Mendez wasn’t arrested on the streets of Denver, and ICE officers didn’t exactly find him. On July 16, Carranza-Mendez was due to be released from a state prison. The week before that, state corrections officials had emailed ICE, informing the agency of his release date and setting up a custody transfer at a facility in Cañon City.

Carranza-Mendez was one of two men arrested by ICE last month directly from a state prison during a large-scale roundup in Colorado of immigrants without proper legal status. They are among 77 arrested that way this year, according to the state , under a prior policy of notifying the agency of a certain offender’s imminent release.

But earlier this month, Colorado’s top prison official directed DOC staff members to stop proactively responding to detainer requests from immigration authorities. Under the department’s new policy, ICE must file public records requests to obtain information about inmates. The new directive was signed Aug. 1, shortly after The Denver Post asked about the two men’s arrests.

Carranza-Mendez and Nicolas Diaz-Hernandez were each arrested on their release dates more than three weeks ago. They were part of a broader ICE operation that, the agency said, was conducted in the Denver area and resulted in at least 243 arrests.

ICE had previously sent detainer forms — effectively a request to hold someone until ICE can arrest them — for both men.

The agency’s Denver-based spokesman, Steve Kotecki, did not return an email seeking comment.

The Department of Corrections’ new limitations on ICE cooperation come amid heightened scrutiny of state and local officials’ relationships with federal immigration authorities as President Donald Trump pushes for mass deportations.

A state employee sued Gov. Jared Polis in June over the state’s intent to comply with an ICE subpoena in violation of a state law limiting such collaboration. More recently, Attorney General Phil Weiser filed suit against a Mesa County sheriff’s deputy for tipping off ICE about a University of Utah student from Brazil who was driving through the state.

Among other limitations, Colorado law generally prohibits state and local officials from delaying a person’s release from jail or prison to comply with an ICE detainer.

State Corrections spokeswoman Alondra Gonzalez-Garcia said the men recently arrested by ICE did not have their release dates changed to accommodate the agency. An immigration lawyer told The Post that the department’s prior policy didn’t appear to violate state law.

New limit on information sharing

When The Post first asked about the department’s interactions with ICE last month, following ICE’s announcement of the large arrest operation, Gonzalez-Garcia said that the agency hadn’t shared any information with immigration authorities, who acted “independently.”

On Aug. 1, a week later, the department reversed course and said it had informed ICE about the men’s release dates and coordinated their transfers to ICE custody, under an agency policy.

That same day, Andre Stancil, the Department of Corrections’ executive director, issued a directive to all department staff, blocking employees from proactively sharing information with ICE unless its agents submit a public records request.

Gonzalez-Garcia declined The Post’s request to interview DOC leaders.

“The executive directive from Executive Director Stancil clarifies and standardizes how DOC responds to ICE requests,” she said in an email. “This directive ensures that ICE may obtain information regarding releases by submitting open records requests, to which appropriate responses are promptly provided.”

The department’s earlier policy of notifying ICE in response to a detainer doesn’t appear to have violated state law, said Violeta Chapin, an immigration lawyer and University of Colorado Law School professor.

But immigration activists accused the agency of sidestepping those restrictions. The Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition accused the department of “creating an active deportation pipeline.”

“These are not isolated incidents but part of a troubling pattern of state and local officials bypassing Colorado’s laws,” Karen Orona, a spokeswoman for the coalition, said in a statement.

In response to the state employee’s June lawsuit against the governor, a Denver judge told Polis that complying with one ICE subpoena would violate state law. Polis’ administration also acknowledged last month that it had complied with four other ICE subpoenas this year — including one that a spokeswoman said it shouldn’t have, prompting changes to state processes.

The incidents have had ripple effects. After Weiser went after the deputy for his actions before the Utah student’s arrest, Mesa County’s commissioners last week signaled their intent to counter-sue Weiser.

Weiser’s office is now investigating other agencies that were participants in a shared group chat with the sheriff’s deputy and federal immigration agents. His office declined to identify the other agencies, other than to point The Post to legal filings that list the Colorado State Patrol, the Vail Police Department and the Eagle County Sheriff’s Office as other participants in the chat.

Sgt. Ivan Alvarado, a State Patrol spokesman, said in a statement that the agency reevaluated its presence in the group chat after the student’s arrest and stopped sharing information in the thread on June 18. He said the patrol respects Weiser’s “ongoing administrative review.”

Vail Police Chief Ryan Kenney wrote in an email to The Post that he couldn’t comment on the AG’s investigation. But he said he was confident that, at the investigation’s conclusion, “no wrongdoing will be found on the part of any Vail police officers.” Ashley LaFleur, an Eagle County spokeswoman, said Weiser’s review was a “matter of administrative due diligence” and that, like Kenney, the county’s officials were confident that its personnel would be cleared of any wrongdoing.

Pressure to protect ‘from federal overreach’

As for Polis, 19 of the state Senate’s 23 Democrats — including Senate President James Coleman and the caucus’ leadership — sent the governor a letter last month about ICE cooperation.

The lawmakers asked Polis to “provide clarity to our state and our constituents about how you will protect them from federal overreach,” like the “fishing expedition” subpoena that Polis had sought to comply with until directed otherwise by a judge.

Polis’ office, which is still contesting the lawsuit, had not responded to the letter as of Friday afternoon. In a statement to The Post, Polis spokeswoman Shelby Wieman said the governor “agrees that Coloradans’ personal information should be protected from unwarranted violations by the federal government,” but he supports “apprehending criminals regardless of immigration status.”

“He is open to further dialogue with the General Assembly on what he views as the shared objectives of keeping communities safe and not supporting the targeting of innocent law-abiding individuals, separating families, or diverting local and state law enforcement from fighting crime to instead pursue federal priorities,” Wieman wrote.

The subpoena at the center of the lawsuit was sent to the state in April as part of what Polis’ office claimed was a criminal investigation, which would’ve qualified for information-sharing with ICE under state law. But Denver Judge A. Bruce Jones said the subpoena wasn’t part of a criminal matter and that Polis’ office had done little to confirm that such an investigation existed.

As part of the fallout from that suit, legislators sent letters to Weiser, Secretary of State Jena Griswold, Treasurer Dave Young and the State Board of Education. They sought assurances about how those agencies would interact with federal immigration authorities, said Rep. Lorena Garcia and Sen. Julie Gonzales, Democrats who’ve sponsored legislation limiting immigration cooperation.

In its response, Weiser’s office wrote that it would take steps to ensure that any subpoena purporting to be part of a criminal investigation was actually part of such an inquiry — “as opposed to a veiled or mis-labeled enforcement action for which the true purpose is immigration enforcement.”

Amie Baca-Oehlert, the former president of the state’s largest teachers union, announced her run for Congress, and Hetal Doshi, a former federal prosecutor, said she will run for attorney general.

Baca-Oehlert planned to formally announce her candidacy Thursday evening at Adams City High School. The U.S. House seat, the newest and most competitive in Colorado, was formed after the 2020 census and spans from Thornton to Greeley.

U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans, a Republican, currently holds the position after defeating Democratic incumbent Yadira Caraveo in 2024. Baca-Oehlert is the fifth person to enter the Democratic primary alongside Caraveo, Colorado Treasurer Dave Young and state Reps. Shannon Bird and Manny Rutinel.

In the race to be Colorado’s next attorney general, Doshi enters with prosecutorial experience. She worked as an “anti-monopoly litigator” as a deputy assistant attorney general at the Department of Justice from 2022 to 2025, according to a news release. She has led cases against Google, Apple and Ticketmaster.

She earlier worked as an assistant U.S. attorney in Colorado.

“Right now, the rule of law is under attack by those who have abandoned patriotism for power,” Doshi said, according to the release. “Colorado’s next Attorney General must have a proven record of taking on the toughest fights — and winning.”

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, a Democrat, is term-limited and is now running for governor in 2026.

Doshi will compete in the Democratic primary against Secretary of State Jena Griswold, Boulder District Attorney Michael Dougherty, former state House Speaker Crisanta Duran and David Seligman, the executive director of the legal nonprofit Towards Justice.

Conner Pennington is the only Republican candidate in the race so far.

Young, a Greeley Democrat, is a former member of the state legislature and its powerful Joint Budget Committee. He points to his deep roots in the district and five successful races — three specifically in the 8th District and two statewide — as evidence he’ll be able to flip the highly competitive seat blue once again in next year’s election.

U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans, a Republican, won the seat in 2024 after defeating freshman Democrat Yadira Caraveo. She was the first to represent the new seat, which was created after the 2020 census and stretches from Thornton to Greeley. Fewer than 2,500 votes have decided the victor in both elections for the seat.

The 2026 race is likely to be just as close. Three other Democrats have declared for it so far: Caraveo and state Reps. Shannon Bird and Manny Rutinel. The primary election will be next summer.

Young, who has served as state treasurer since 2019 and is term-limited in 2026, said in an interview ahead of his Wednesday morning announcement that he was motivated to seek office once more by Evans’ recent yes vote on the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” the sweeping Republican spending and tax cut package supported by President Donald Trump.

In particular, Young is worried about in the bill. Evans, for his part, has argued that the bill has been the subject of “blatant fearmongering.”

Young’s sister has severe developmental disabilities and behavioral health issues, he said, and cuts to Medicaid two decades ago left her homeless. Cuts then spurred him to seek office in 2011, when he was appointed to the Colorado House of Representatives, and they’re spurring him now, Young said.

“I know I can compete and win races, and I know I can win this one,” Young said. “We’ve got to get Gabe Evans out of there, and people need to know that the services they depend on are going to be sustained and improved so they can move their lives forward.”

Young said he plans to run on “kitchen table economic issues” and on his experience. He pointed to a bill he ran to reform the state Medicaid program as a lawmaker and to his administration as treasurer of the small business CLIMBER loan fund and the unclaimed property trust fund. He wants Congress to wrest back balance as a co-equal branch of government to the White House.

“Congress right now is giving away their power and authority,” Young said. “… We see it play out in tariffs right now, where the administration has far exceeded its authority and created economic ripples, but you also see it where they’re reluctant to push back on things like what Gave Evans voted on.”

The new law, , will take a $60 million, interest-free loan from the state’s unclaimed property trust fund to create the provider stabilization fund. The new fund will help the state’s safety-net providers as they struggle to care for Coloradans following the drop-off in Medicaid coverage after the COVID-19 health emergency.

“Our health care safety net has been strained over the last five years, and it is at a breaking point today,” Sen. Kyle Mullica, a sponsor and Thornton Democrat, said in a statement. He called the new fund “a necessary and important step” to bolster the providers.

Colorado hospitals have also pledged to raise an additional $40 million for the new fund. Officials hope to leverage the combined money for federal matching grants, potentially bringing the new stabilization fund to $200 million.

Community health clinics have said the new fund will be vital to meet demand. One, the nonprofit Jefferson Center for Mental Health, has seen a 50% increase in patients without insurance over the past 18 months — leading to cuts in jobs, services for patients with mobility problems, and maintenance for its facilities and infrastructure.

Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a Brighton Republican and bill sponsor, called the new fund “a critical lifeline that will allow us to build toward sustainable, long-term solutions.” She highlighted in the statement that the new fund will help a cross-section of providers. She has previously warned about the state’s 25 counties without maternal health care.

But the new law wasn’t without controversy.

Treasurer Dave Young, while not questioning the need for the new fund, warned against lawmakers digging too deep into the state’s unclaimed property trust fund. The unclaimed property trust fund is made up of money that was lost on the way to its rightful owners, such as old 401(k)s, insurance payouts, and more — money that belongs to individuals, not the state.

Over the last two decades, the legislature has already tapped about $660 million out of about $2 billion in liabilities. To help calm those concerns, lawmakers changed SB 290 to rely primarily on interest collected on the unclaimed property trust fund and classified the money as a loan that must be repaid by 2045 — if future lawmakers don’t change the terms.

The legislature looks poised to tap the fund for two bills in the waning days of the legislative session, even as critics — chief among them Treasurer Dave Young — argue against drawing from a fund made up of lost money, not taxes, to cover the cost of government services.

The trust fund holds money from Coloradans’ old savings accounts, unpaid wages, insurance payouts and other cash lost on the way to its rightful owners. The treasurer’s office has a long-running program to return that money called .

The fund accounts for some $2 billion that doesn’t belong to the state, but it nonetheless has proven a tempting a source for a constantly cash-strapped legislature. Over the past two decades, lawmakers have pulled more than $660 million from the trust fund to pay for programs, according to the treasurer’s office, and not a single penny has been paid back.

That����ap left it with about $1.3 billion in cash and about $2 billion in liabilities.

That deficit could grow. A bill that would give safety-net health care facilities a lifeline following the pandemic and another supporting fire departments across the state could add some $140 million to that debt if lawmakers pass them by the end of the legislative session on Wednesday. (A third bill also sought to tap into the fund, but it died in committee Monday.)

“It’s not a tax fund. It’s a trust fund,” said Young, a Democrat. “There actually aren’t any taxes in this, though there might be some tax refunds that have gotten trapped in there.”

The importance of the programs justifies the unorthodox budget move, backers of the bills said, especially when lawmakers spent the year making deep cuts to state spending.

“It’s a tight budget year, so we’re looking everywhere to fund things,” said Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer, a sponsor of the health care bill and a member of the Joint Budget Committee. “… There are certain services we have to provide as a government, and that’s things people can’t do for themselves. We have to look into it.”

Helping safety-net hospitals

would use the trust fund loan to seed an account to help keep safety-net hospitals afloat throughout Colorado, with matching money provided by state hospitals and the federal government. The bill aims to backstop critical health care infrastructure, while saving Medicaid money by treating people before their ailments progress into costlier hospital stays.

That helps put the proposal in a class of its own, in the view of Kirkmeyer, a Brighton Republican. She also emphasized that the bill taps the money as a loan, not as a simple cash grab.

The proposal might be well intentioned, but it still creates unnecessary risk, Young said. The general fund will have to repay the loans if the trust fund ever falters, and, more existentially, tapping it could disincentivize companies from depositing lost money to the state.

They, too, could argue they’re investing the money in critical programs while holding onto it for its rightful owners, he said.

Loans from the fund often don’t “pass the smell test” because of the terms written into law, Young said. The loans tend to be interest-free, with a single bulk repayment when they’re due decades from now — and no repayment plan.

“I don’t think anyone could go to a bank and get a deal like that,” Young said. “I don’t think anyone could get a mortgage and say ‘We’ll pay it back in 40 years, in one lump sum, with zero interest.’ ”

Sen. Jeff Bridges, the chair of the budget committee, said the use of the fund for loans instead of direct spending made him “somewhat less uncomfortable, though still deeply uncomfortable,” given the state’s budget situation.

Still, he said, people should assume the loans will be forgiven instead of paid back by future lawmakers.

‘We have to be cautious’

The fund generally collects more money every year than it doles out, said Bridges, a Greenwood Village Democrat, even as he praised Young for the campaign to connect people with lost money. Given the state’s fiscal problems, the bills tapping the fund this year didn’t bother him, though he warned that “this can’t be a pattern that continues.”

“We have to be thoughtful, we have to be cautious,” Bridges, who is running for treasurer in 2026, said. “But for what����ap running this year, I think the fund can handle those expenditures.”

Young cautioned that new ways of reuniting people with money, along with a more proactive approach to finding folks who have lost cash in the fund, make it hard to calculate how much money the state could deem truly lost and unclaimable.

Pulling money from the lost property trust fund has caused some breaks in the Democratic caucus. Rep. Brianna Titone, an Arvada Democrat, has railed against bills looking to tap into the fund and supported pushing one bill back to committee to change it.

She, like Bridges, is running for treasurer next year.

“There are arguments on both sides, (including) that the money is just sitting there,” Titone said. “But I don’t view it that way. I view this as other people’s property, and we should be treating it as such.”

The debate also shows the complexity of state funding. Rep. Andrew Boesenecker, a Fort Collins Democrat, is sponsoring . The bill would tap into the trust fund to create a revolving loan fund for local fire departments.

Those entities are now bearing the brunt of recent property tax cuts approved by the legislature — moves that, in turn, put other types of property at risk.

“We obviously have an obligation to protect people, keep property safe wherever we can,” Boesenecker said. “But that comes at a cost, and so many of our fire prevention districts are already strapped — so that revolving loan fund and zero-interest loan fund are critical there.”