The former Colorado attorney general, U.S. senator, Interior secretary and ambassador to Mexico writes about the plan and the impact of family and growing up in southern Colorado’s San Luis Valley on his career in his book “Borderlands: My Fight for an Inclusive America.”

The book, scheduled for release July 28, is part memoir, charting his journey from a ranching area, home to his family for several generations, to the upper levels of political power in Colorado and the federal government.

“Borderlands” is also Salazar’s proposed map for charting a path out of what he said is the country’s “greatest division in my lifetime.” He blames President Donald Trump for the division and denounces what he calls Trump’s “project of erasure”: the dismantling of diversity, inclusion and norms that constrained his modern-era predecessors.

The White House didn’t respond to requests for comment.

While Salazar criticizes Trump for vilifying immigrants to grab and hold onto power, he doesn’t let his fellow Democrats off the hook. He vents frustration with the Biden administration for not responding sooner to the growing groups of people crossing the border with Mexico and for not appointing a migration “czar” that he advocated for.

Salazar said Trump was right when he called the southern border broken. Thousands of people a day were crossing into the U.S., far beyond what Customers and Border Protection was meant to handle.

“We criticize Donald Trump as unfit for office, which I think is accurate. But you’ve got to move beyond that to really create the vision and the solutions for the future,” Salazar said in an interview with The Denver Post.

He hopes Democrats have learned that people’s concerns about a safe, secure border need to be addressed. “You don’t solve the crisis by simply calling it something else or walking away from it.”

Dick Wadhams, former state Republican chairman and longtime political strategist for GOP candidates, said he couldn’t see Salazar agreeing with the Biden administration’s policies on the border.

“Ken Salazar, I always thought, was a very smart political guy and that he could see that the nation was not in favor of essentially an open border,”  Wadhams said. “And second, that’s just not the right way to have a border. A nation has to have a secure border.”

Immigration reform, long stymied in Congress, was needed, including changes in asylum laws, Salazar wrote in his book. Migrants reaching the border could claim asylum and wait to go to court, which could take months or even years.

“This surge turned an existing crisis into what I can only call an emergency. Eleven months before the US election, it had the potential to be politically devastating for President Biden,” Salazar wrote. “But even more than that, it was a human catastrophe on an industrial scale.”

Salazar said Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, or AMLO, as many call him, grew frustrated with a lack of movement by the U.S. to modernize facilities on its side of the border as Mexico had. Salazar was vexed by a drop in Mexico’s repatriation flights and efforts to relocate migrants from the border.

Vice President Kamala Harris was tasked with getting at the “root causes” of the migration problem by concentrating on poverty and corruption in places such as Guatemala and Honduras. But Salazar wrote the effort “was having no effect on migration flows.”

However, the border wasn’t open as Republicans claimed, Salazar said. Including the COVID-related expulsions, former President Joe Biden had deported about 3.6 million migrants, more than the 2 million Trump deported during his entire first term, Salazar wrote.

Biden issued an executive order on asylum restrictions. The number of crossings began dropping almost immediately and continued to decline, Salazar said.

And a bipartisan immigration reform bill introduced in the Senate looked like it might pass, but failed 50-49 in February 2024 after Trump, then a private citizen, intervened.

“He needed the chaos, the human suffering, the political vulnerability it created for President Biden and congressional Democrats,” Salazar wrote.

in Trump winning a second term. were among Trump’s promises in the 2024 presidential campaign.

“There were a lot of issues. You could point to Biden hanging on too long, inflation,” said Robert Preuhs, a professor and head of the political science department at Metropolitan State University of Denver.

“But immigration was one of those sets of important issues that arose right around that time. It has been a growing concern and it was certainly an impetus for voting for Trump, particularly among Republicans,” Preuhs said.

Slight majorities and in some cases pluralities of Americans support more border security, a legal framework for immigration and see diversity, particularly from immigration, as beneficial to the U.S., Preuhs said.

“The difficulty is that there are slices of each party that reject particular points of those,” Preuhs said. “I think polarization is still the overriding context in the midterms and likely in 2028.”

Salazar: Not identity politics, unity agenda

Salazar wants to defuse the polarization he sees as a threat to the country’s democratic principles. On immigration, he supports pathways to legalization for the “Dreamers,” who were brought to the U.S. as children, and others in the U.S. illegally. He said criteria must be established and the people would have to be “good actors.”

As a Senator, he worked on bipartisan legislation that offered immigrants an opportunity to become citizens. The requirements included background checks, payment of back taxes, learning English and starting the naturalization process at the “back of the line.”

There are 10 million to 12 million people living in the shadows and mass deportations of them don’t make sense, Salazar said.

“You’re going to have an economy that breaks if you deport them. Whether it’s homeowners who have landscaping needs, or contractors, or dairy farms, or slaughterhouses, they’re going to be hurting more than they’re hurting today,” Salazar said.

Families in Colorado and across the country are living in fear of parents being deported and children being left behind, he said.

Under Trump, diversity, what Salazar calls America’s “superpower,” is under siege, Salazar said. As Interior Secretary in the Obama administration, Salazar said the department worked to diversify the ranks of employees and tell the stories of all Americans.

“Some would call this ‘identity politics,’ but I’ve always called it a unity agenda,” Salazar wrote.

He grew up on a ranch in the San Luis Valley in southern Colorado on land his family has owned since before Colorado became a state. His family’s roots in the Southwest go back four centuries.

Mexican Americans throughout the region “became U.S. citizens of this country not by choice but by conquest when, in 1848, the United States won a bloody two-year conflict it had waged against Mexico,” Salazar wrote.

The differences in people’s backgrounds and beliefs that the Trump administration deems unimportant are the country’s strengths and protecting them is part of the march toward a more perfect union, Salazar said.

“I can’t stand on the sidelines and just watch everything that I’ve worked for in my life basically be undone by this president and his administration,” Salazar said.

He wrote that he was fortunate to have been raised “with the hallmark values of faith, family, and community, and to have had exceptional mentors throughout my life.”  He said they taught him to fight for a diverse and inclusive society.

“And now is the time to fight,” Salazar added.

He believes his New American Alliance proposal gives Democrats something to fight for. The relationship with Mexico and Canada would focus on such areas as trade; national security; maintaining security along borders; migration; crime; defense; energy; and climate change.

Salazar has talked to national politicians, think tanks and business organizations about his plan. He wants to see the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement be renewed. have strained relations among the neighbors.

“I think what I have posed is something that the Democrats should embrace, as well as Republicans. It’s a good program for America, for security, for the economy,” Salazar said.

Asked if he is considering promotion of the alliance as a lead-up to a run for the White House, Salazar said for now, he’s taking his granddaughter’s advice.

“Mireya, my granddaughter, always tells me, ‘One thing at a time.’ Right now the message is about the borderlands, the platform for the borderlands,” Salazar said.

After his time as ambassador to Mexico ended, Salazar said he thought about running for Colorado governor. But in 2025, he had started work on his book and thought he could accomplish more by pursuing what he refers to as his “borderlands” agenda.

After Biden struggled in his debate with Trump in July 2024 and sentiment grew that he should drop out of the race, Salazar wrote that he considered running for president on a “Make America United Again” campaign.

Salazar’s plans ended when Biden halted his campaign and endorsed Vice President Harris.

“If there were no primaries and he was the candidate, I think a Ken Salazar campaign would have a lot of potential,” Preuhs, the MSU-Denver professor said. “I do think it’s important to have a senior statesman, particularly a moderate, but also a Latino, making these arguments for the importance of diversity.”

But there are already up to a dozen viable Democratic presidential candidates, some well-known, Preuhs said. And it’s unclear whether the party will rally behind a moderate or back a more progressive candidate.

“I think a lot of it depends on how well moderates do in some of these swing districts this year,” he added.

Political consultant Wadhams said if Biden had not sought a second term and if a competitive nomination process had been held, Salazar could have played an interesting role in the election.

“Now, would he have won the nomination? I don’t know, because I think maybe he is in some ways too, interestingly enough, conservative for today’s Democratic Party,” Wadhams said.

The two political parties are operating from the extremes, he added. The Democratic Party is heavily influenced by the Democratic Socialists, while the “MAGA, stolen-election conspiracists run the Republican Party,” Wadhams said.

Part of what makes Salazar different from other Democrats is his rural background, Wadhams said. When Republican Bill Owens was elected governor in 1998, Salazar, who was elected as attorney general, was the only Democrat to win statewide office. Salazar invited Wadhams, Owens’ press secretary, to breakfast to get to know him.

“What it really drove home for me that day was that our backgrounds were so similar,” said Wadhams, who grew up in the Arkansas Valley, east of the San Luis Valley.

“We were kind of chuckling that we both had to feed livestock before we went to school every day,” Wadhams said. “We both grew up on irrigated farms. We talked about spending our summers stacking hay and irrigating crops.

“I don’t think you can underestimate his family background, where he grew up and how he grew up and how that����ap affected his political persona,” Wadhams said.

For the time being, the politics Salazar is focused on is his idea for a North American alliance. He also splits time between being with his family in Denver and working on the family ranch near Manassa in the San Luis Valley, which sits between the San Juan and Sangre de Cristo mountains.

He also intends to stay engaged in public affairs no matter what. “I have more public purpose left in me.”

Lawmakers and advocacy groups have been calling for regular inspections since Melvin Ariel Calero-Mendoza, a 39-year-old Nicaraguan national, died in Aurora, Colorado’s only center, in October 2022. The center, administered by Geo Group, has 1,530 beds.

In March of this year, the Adams County Health Department reprimanded the facility for lack of access to staff and delays during its investigation into accusations of widespread gastrointestinal and respiratory illness in January. Detainees have also criticized the center for serving moldy or spoiled food and poorly functioning air conditioning.

Geo Group, which operates the Aurora detention center under a contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), filed suit to strike down the law and suspend its implementation immediately. The company contends that unpredictable inspections will increase the cost and administrative burden to the company and the government, and that only the federal government can mandate how the company is run. Moreover, they say, the law is unfair since the state does not require county health inspections of prisons. These reasons have succeeded in deterring several other states where legislators have tried to oversee ICE. 

One such state, , though in the midst of similar court proceedings, was able to conduct a partial investigation of Geo Group-run Delaney Hall and found the facility’s kitchen areas satisfactory. The state Department of Health inspectors, however, were not allowed to examine the medical unit, bathrooms or sleeping quarters. New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport filed a against Geo Group for denying that access.

Other detention centers run by other companies have also received complaints about food, sanitary conditions, air conditioning, medical care and abuse. Last week, the Government Accountability Office issued a report finding Camp East Montana in Texas, the nation’s largest facility, wasted millions of taxpayer dollars and failed to provide adequate care. The report found some egregious problems; a contract security guard at the center, for example, lost a loaded somewhere in the camp, putting everyone in danger. 

For all these reasons, state lawmakers want greater leverage to investigate facilities to ensure detainees are receiving care. The Colorado General Assembly did the right thing in passing HB 1276. Whether they win or lose in court, the bill’s passage will serve as a wake-up call. All immigration facilities in this country, whether they are managed by ICE or through a contract, must provide basic, safe, clean facilities with clear water and decent food. The General Assembly will have their day in court. In the meantime, they can sleep at night, which may be more than we can say for detainees at some ICE detention centers. 

Krista Kafer is a Sunday Denver Post columnist.

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Now, the 25-year-old graduate student frequents those same courtrooms, hoping the research she’s contributing to helps many more on their immigration journeys.

Gutierrez Marquez and three of her peers are research assistants under , documenting what goes on during immigration court proceedings in Denver and at the Aurora detention facility as part of the

Beginning last fall, they took shifts sitting through hundreds of immigration hearings, : which countries immigrants were from, how many had attorneys, what arguments attorneys deployed, how judges responded, case outcomes and more. Then, the students showed up to bond hearings at the immigration detention facility and documented those outcomes, too.

They recorded government inefficiencies and legal decisions unlike any the immigration experts they were working with had ever seen. By , the researchers hope to expose a system they described as unjust and shine a light on a federal administration hostile toward immigrants.

“I went into this experience thinking the government is so inefficient, and it����ap taught me the government is efficient in its inefficiencies,” Gutierrez Marquez said. “It����ap really made me think of how policies are made intentionally to help block and postpone outcomes. We see so many heavy things, but judges have been picking up on us being there and are starting to realize they don’t want bad press, so even though we are not able to make direct changes to this inhumane system, just us being there is making an impact, and I remind myself that when it feels so heavy.”

The four young women, many carrying their own personal experiences with the immigration system, said documenting the already complex immigration legal system as it undergoes unprecedented changes has been revelatory, heart-wrenching and empowering.

During their , the DU researchers attended 450 initial hearings and 111 bond hearings at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Aurora that is run by The Geo Group. The researchers are still cleaning up data from their time at Denver immigration court.

Their findings confirmed what immigration attorneys, advocates and those impacted by the system have been seeing: thousands of immigrants being detained, denied bond and, in many cases, choosing to self-deport to escape seemingly endless detention, said Christina Brown, founder and executive director of the nonprofit .

An unidentified ICE spokesperson responded to a Denver Post request for comment via email, saying Homeland Security was working “rapidly and overtime” to remove immigrants from detention centers and send them back to their countries of origin.

No immigrant during the observed timeframe won a claim for any kind of relief, including by obtaining asylum or green card status through a family member with citizenship, which would have given them legal status to remain in the U.S., Galemba said.

In fact, 34% of detainees had already filed for relief, predominantly through asylum claims, and were detained anyway. In 29 cases, the respondents had pending relief but still requested voluntary departure or removal orders, the researchers found.

“A lot of them, around 95%, were people who expressly stated they could no longer stand to be detained and needed to leave,” said Ella Iveslatt, 22, a DU graduate and project manager of the court transparency research project. “That����ap striking because you see people who have forms of relief available to them, but they’re just facing procedural exhaustion.”

The unidentified ICE spokesperson noted that detained immigrants “can obtain release at any time by requesting a free flight home and a $2,600 exit bonus.”

‘This detention system is being weaponized’

Brown has worked on the transparency project with Galemba for years. She is now providing legal consultation to the research students when they have questions about something they witnessed in court.

She said the DU data shows immigration detention is being used as a punishment for people who have decided to fight their case to stay in the U.S.

“It’s also being used as a way to deny people rights because when they are detained and can’t get out, they give up,” Brown said. “We have seen so, so much injustice happening in these cases, things I haven’t seen in 14 years of doing this work. Judges making the craziest decisions not based in law at all and getting away with it because people don’t want to stay detained through appeals, and before an independent court can look at it, they’re removed. You see how this detention system is being weaponized to make it so people who qualify for relief won’t go forward and will leave on their own terms.”

During nearly 75% of the observed bond hearings, the judges did not set bond, according to the DU team’s data, with judges claiming they did not have jurisdiction to do so in 46% of those cases.

In 12 cases, the judge did not have jurisdiction because Homeland Security failed to file the necessary paperwork — an   — the researchers said. The number of governmental procedural errors, like unfiled paperwork or losing track of a detainee who was supposed to appear in court, was striking, Iveslatt said.

“It’s weaponized incompetence,” Iveslatt said.

The ICE spokesperson said the I-286 form is necessary only when agents are making a custody decision. If immigrants are subject to mandatory detention, the ICE representative said, there is no need for an I-286 form.

The researchers found most people were not given the chance to provide evidence at their bond hearings as to why they should be released from detention because of bureaucratic confusion with paperwork and rapidly changing laws, the researchers said.

While immigration arrests have spiked, law enforcement agencies increasingly have detained people without any prior criminal convictions or charges.

During Trump’s first year back in office, 4,750 people without legal status were arrested by federal immigration authorities in Colorado — a near-quadrupling of the prior year’s arrest rate.

‘This work can be very draining’

Jasmine Salgado Simental had already heard about conditions within the ICE detention center from her father, who was detained in the Aurora facility when she was a child. She grew up hearing about maggots in his food and a guard taking her father’s identification card and cutting it in half in front of his face, she said.

Christopher Ferreira, a spokesperson for the GEO Group, which is contracted by ICE to run the Aurora facility, referred The Post to the federal agency when a reporter asked about the conditions within the detention center.

Salgado Simental grew up in Aurora with Mexican immigrant parents. When she walks into the ICE detention center, she said she’s often spoken to as if she’s in immigration proceedings herself. Looking around at detainees and their families, the 21-year-old said she realized it could easily be one of her loved ones on the other side of the court hearing.

She intends to go to law school and had aspirations to become an immigration lawyer, although this research project has made her wonder whether she might have more impact as a judge someday.

“This work can be very draining emotionally,” Salgado Simental said. “However, it is very rewarding.”

Brown is proud of the students working on this research project.

“I can’t even imagine going in and facing this head-on after having my own family members go through it,” Brown said. “What they are witnessing and the information they are collecting is difficult… I think they’re really strong and that����ap what we need. We need people to find the strength in themselves to look at the injustice of this head-on and do something about it. That����ap what they’re doing every day.”

Brown and the researchers hope this data is used to shine a light on a system that she said doesn’t get much oversight.

“Seeing data on what is happening and how many people are being harmed is really important to having the general public understand it,” Brown said.

The first time Leticia Madrigal Tapia attended court by herself, she came to document a hearing for longtime immigration activist Jeanette Vizguerra who spent nine months in the Aurora detention center last year as one of Colorado’s highest-profile arrestees in President Donald Trump’s mass-deportation push.

Unlike most proceedings, this hearing was crowded with media and supporters and the detention center asked people to leave — a departure from typical proceedings.

Madrigal Tapia was nervous as federal law enforcement ordered her to go, especially because she had recently obtained her U.S. citizenship.

“I was very scared,” Madrigal Tapia said. “It was a pretty heavy experience. Just going to a single hearing, you bear witness to just how inhumane people are treated there and the structural violence people are going through.”

Re: “As Lake Powell’s levels recede, life reemerges,” June 7 news story

Congress should demand that the Bureau of Reclamation accelerate its efforts to modify Glen Canyon Dam to allow more water to flow from Lake Powell to Lake Mead. Doing so would enhance water security for the millions of people and vast agricultural regions in Arizona, California, Nevada and Mexico that rely on water from Lake Mead. It would protect hydropower production at Hoover Dam, which has about 60% more generating capacity than Glen Canyon Dam. It would also support the ongoing ecological restoration now flourishing in Glen Canyon.

Lake Mead is less than 30% full and can accommodate more than three times the water currently stored in Lake Powell.

According to the Bureau’s of Colorado River conditions, Lake Powell will drop below 3,500 feet throughout the entire first quarter of 2027. At that elevation, hydroelectric generation at Glen Canyon Dam will be severely curtailed, despite unprecedented actions to prop up the reservoir.

The same forecast projects that Lake Mead will fall to a level at which, for nearly a year, the cost to operate and maintain Hoover Dam will exceed revenues from hydroelectric sales.

The Bureau has been studying potential modifications to Glen Canyon Dam for years, but does not expect to complete even its “appraisal study” until the end of 2026.

Congress should appropriate funds immediately and direct the Bureau to develop the plans and engineering designs required to construct major modifications to Glen Canyon Dam — changes that would ensure significantly more water can be delivered downstream to Lake Mead.

Ronald L. Rudolph, Golden

Dems should ‘close ranks’ around Platner

Re: “Democrats cannot ignore Platner’s many red flags and hold the moral high ground,” June 7 commentary

Moral high ground? Elections are not about morals. They are about power — who gains power, how they are exercising power and accountability for that power.

Elections are not dating events. Voters do not choose a mate. A pure heart, an unimpeachable background, perfect manners and a dental plan do not matter. Graham Platner is not running to be Maine’s sweetheart. He is running for one of its Senate seats.

Platner is Maine’s Democratic Senate candidate. There is no other. It is him against Republican Susan Collins, who talks centrist and votes extremist. He is the Democratic candidate because he, as columnist Doug Friednash laments, “…has been leading in the polls and offers the party a chance to beat Susan Collins.” Democracy in action.

For the sake of us, the people, our country and the planet, Democrats must now regain power. Only with power can they combat the corruption and the chaos, legislate for the people, and reverse the prevailing “….pattern of offensive and vulgar conduct” that Mr. Friednash sanctimoniously and wrongfully attributes to Platner, and which the current regime inflicts on us, the people, every day, all day long.

A covered-up Totenkopf tattoo? Cute, considering Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s uncovered vile white supremacist tattoos and corresponding vile, white supremacist activities. Foul language? Who cares in light of President Trump and Co.’s incessant sewage tweets? Impure manners towards women who are not his wife? He is not commanding them to “be quiet, piggy” or bragging about grabbing their nether regions without consent.

Those who want Dems to gain power must close ranks behind Dem candidates, not sabotage them with irrelevant purity tests.

Floy Jeffares, Lakewood

Hetal Doshi for Attorney General

Re: “Vote Michael Dougherty for Colorado attorney general in the Democratic primary,” June 7 editorial

I am challenging the Denver Post����ap endorsement of Michael Dougherty for Colorado’s attorney general. The reasons given for the endorsement focused on his local experience. While admirable, it is my opinion that Hetal Doshi has more credible state and federal experience.

Doshi has already managed a staff of over 800 and will hit the ground running. She has well-established relationships with attorneys general throughout the country. She has taken on and won huge antitrust cases.

Both Dougherty and David Seligman will strive to do well by Colorado. That said, Doshi’s depth and breadth of experience, along with her bipartisanship, professionalism and temperament, make her the strongest candidate. We need Hetal Doshi’s leadership at this critical period.

Alice Applebaum, Denver

DeGette should remain in the U.S. House

Re: “DeGette has served 15 terms, but has she been effective?” May 31 news story

Yes! Rep. Diana DeGette is effective.

As a resident of Colorado House District 1, I’m affected by the leadership of our district. For years, I’ve supported Rep. DeGette, and I continue to do so. Not because she and I are both getting along in years (that would be blatant agism, much like candidate Melat Kiros is doing in her campaign materials), but because she’s been an excellent representative.

Experience must count for something, and that����ap what I see lacking in Kiros’ materials. I see no experience with the political process; I see no grassroots work in the community; I see no elected or appointed political positions, not even in high school or college. How do we know she’ll work effectively?

It doesn’t matter how often she claims she’ll work for universal Medicare. If she doesn’t know how to function as an elected official, she’ll be ineffective. Rep DeGette’s office has always responded to inquiries, has always communicated with her constituents, and has always been informed about the details and possible repercussions of political doings.

Bonnie McCune, Denver

Hickenlooper should remain in U.S. Senate

Re: “Is Hickenlooper the one to fight Trump, or should voters give Gonzales a chance?” June 10 editorial

The Denver Post passed the buck by not endorsing either U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper or state Sen. Julie Gonzales. Call me old-fashioned but I believe Hickenlooper’s approach to statesmanship is what is needed.

Gonzales is apparently qualified and has demonstrated a zeal for change; however, I am troubled when persons aspiring to political office make claims that are unrealistic and, quite frankly, not possible in the current situation. Elimination of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is not feasible. There is much I find unconscionable about ICE, but it needs to be reformed, not eliminated.

Hickenlooper has demonstrated an aptitude for accomplishment, quiet, unheralded, and consistent. As mayor of Denver, governor of Colorado and senator, he has been businesslike, steady and knowledgeable.

Gonzales alleges some financial impropriety on Hickenlooper’s part, but The Post rightfully points out that he has been judicious about placing his finances in a “blind trust,” encouraging other senators to do the same. Gonzales says that she wants Medicare for all and will abolish private health insurance. I am sorry, but this demonstrates a naivete and lack of certainty in what this means in terms of costs and practicality.

No one doubts that Trump has to be curtailed, but remember, no one senator can effect change individually; it must be done by consensus and compromise.

Philip Arreola, Denver

Editor’s note: The policy of The Denver Post and its sister papers in Tribune and Media News Group is not to endorse in U.S. Senate and gubernatorial races.

Let Russell Wilson have his broadcasting shot

Re: “Wilson’s a Hall-of-Famer, but he’ll be brutal,” June 7 sports commentary

Sean Keeler has decided to carry on the nasty comments on Russell Wilson into a brand new TV job for him before he even has his first try at it. Okay, let’s remind Keeler to give people a chance. I’m sure people have done that for him and haven’t trashed him before he even started his reporting career. Back off!

Dea Coschignano, Wheat Ridge

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“Where do you stand in regard to ICE?” the woman asked, referring to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Rutinel, who was pressing the flesh on a hot, sunny afternoon in Thornton’s Carpenter Park, was more than ready with an answer. President Donald Trump’s immigration policies and crackdown on people living in the country illegally have provided reliable talking points for the 31-year-old state representative from Commerce City.

“They’re terrorizing Latino immigrants,” Rutinel, whose mother immigrated to the United States from the Dominican Republic, told the couple. “It’s personal for me.”

Nearly 24 hours earlier and about seven miles away, Shannon Bird — the other Democrat running in the 8th Congressional District — was going door to door in the Sherrelwood neighborhood in Adams County. The former state representative carried a stack of campaign flyers emblazoned with the words: “Fight Trump. Stop ICE.”

Bird, 57, and Rutinel are facing off in the Democratic primary on June 30. They’re each hoping to go to battle this November with Republican U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans to represent the 8th District, which largely covers suburbs and farm fields across parts of three counties north of Denver.

The race revolves around the familiar issues Democrats have been bringing up since Trump regained the White House last year: immigration, the cost of living and the environment. But Bird and Rutinel, separated in age by 26 years, say they bring their own skill sets and perspectives to a district that has landed in the national spotlight.

“This is where you find out where people are at — what they’re all about,” said Bird, as a campaign aide used a smartphone to shoot footage of her walking along Douglas Drive. “I know the community — I have an authentic connection to the people in this community. To win, people have to know you care about them.”

Several people who opened their doors on that hot Friday afternoon pledged their vote to Bird, including 80-year-old Patricia Hall, who has lived in her Albert Court house since 1972.

For Hall, it comes down to Bird’s longevity in the district — a quarter-century of volunteering for Adams 12 Five Star Schools and serving on the Westminster City Council and at the state Capitol for the better part of two terms.

Rutinel has lived in Commerce City for four years, though he spent several additional months in the city in 2020, according to his campaign. Bird has lived in Westminster for 25 years.

“She’s been out talking to the people,” said Hall, who worried about Colorado’s experience deficit in the nation’s capital should U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet be elected Colorado governor this fall. “We gotta get some of the experience back in Washington.”

While the candidates are putting their feet to the ground to talk to voters, the much bigger outreach effort is happening on television and online. Between fundraising by both campaigns and a gush of spending by outside groups, the 8th Congressional District primary has turned into an expensive affair.

Bird and Rutinel together have raised more than $5 million, and outside groups have reported independent spending totaling nearly $5.8 million in the primary.

“The 8th District is still the race to watch,” said Robert Preuhs, a political science professor at the Metropolitan State University of Denver.

The district, Colorado’s newest, covers Denver’s northern suburbs and the agricultural land and oil fields stretching to Greeley. It could play a crucial role in determining control of a closely divided Congress in 2027, given its — a dynamic that has sent representatives from both major parties to Washington in less than four years.

Until recently, the Democratic primary was a three-person contest. But in late May, former Marine Evan Munsing called it quits. He did not immediately endorse anyone in the race.

With an animated — and often angry — Democratic voting base in this election cycle, Preuhs said such angst could play in favor of a relative newcomer to the district, like Rutinel, who has tried to push a more left-leaning message on the trail.

“Voters are really looking for something different,” the professor said. “They’re seeking that candidate that can push back on ICE. I think he has a natural tie and attraction to Latinos in the district.”

The Latino factor and big outside money

The 8th District is Colorado’s most heavily Latino, with , according to data from the 2021 Colorado redistricting effort. The Hispanic vote was thought to be a critical part of former U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo’s victory in 2022 over state Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer, according to an exit poll conducted during the election.

In late April, the Latino Victory Project pledged a on behalf of Rutinel, who it said “will protect our communities from MAGA’s extremist policies,” referring to Trump’s coalition. The progressive advocacy group spends in support of Latino candidates.

Since then, the group — and its political action committee, the Latino Victory Fund — have ramped up their spending, reporting nearly $1.9 million in independent expenditures in support of Rutinel or opposing Bird, . Another Latino-supporting group, SOMOS PAC, has reported spending nearly $898,000 to help Rutinel.

Those amounts are part of nearly $4.1 million spent by outside groups on ads, mailers and other activities in support of Rutinel or opposing Bird as of Friday. That sum includes $949,000 spent by You Can Push Back, a super PAC that lauds Rutinel’s sponsorship of Colorado artificial intelligence regulations.

Less outside money — $1.7 million, according to FEC filings — has been spent to help Bird, either in support of her or opposing Rutinel. About $1.3 million of that has come from Women Vote, a super PAC associated with Emily’s List, which supports women running for office.

In direct contributions, Rutinel holds a distinct money advantage over Bird, having raised nearly twice as much as she has — Just over two weeks from the primary election, their ads — and those bought by outside groups — have become fixtures on metro Denver TV screens.

Yazmin Torres, who owns the Neveria La Unica food truck, says she connects with Rutinel, a fluent Spanish speaker raised by a single mother. The candidate paid her a visit at Thorntonfest last weekend and she thanked him for his work on a 2025 bill that .

As a single mom herself, Torres said she felt a kinship with Rutinel. She also wanted to follow in his footsteps and become a lawyer. Rutinel earned his law degree from Yale University.

“My dream is to go to law school, so he’s an inspiration to do that,” she said. “It’s nice to have someone to represent us.”

But securing the Latino vote in the district is no guarantee of victory. In 2024, the showed a strong preference among Latino voters for Caraveo over Evans — by more than 20% — but Evans, who is also Latino, prevailed in that contest.

Bird, an attorney before getting into politics, has her own story of growing up with a single mother. She often recounts that her family stayed afloat by relying on tips from her grandmother’s casino dealer job in Reno, Nevada. Those are the kinds of economic struggles she hears from potential constituents while knocking on doors.

“The high cost of living — and now with the Iran war — the cost of gas,” Bird said. “And those energy costs spread throughout the economy.”

Her opponent’s decision to support a state budget this year that included cuts to Medicaid has become one of Bird’s campaign attack lines. At a late May candidate forum in Greeley, she told Rutinel and the audience that she would “absolutely not have voted to cut Medicaid.”

“He should have fought to use the rainy day fund to hold off the worst of these cuts,” Bird said in an interview with The Denver Post. “Both Gabe Evans and Manny Rutinel believe that cutting Medicaid is a way to pass a budget.”

Rutinel dismisses Bird’s allegations, saying he tried to save Medicaid funds in the Colorado budget but was unable to marshal the support amongst his colleagues to do so.

“I did the work to bring amendments to dip into the reserves further,” he said.

Rutinel said he grew up on Medicaid, so he knows its importance firsthand.

“Saving Medicaid is personal for me,” he said.

In turn, Rutinel regularly critiques Bird’s vote against a 2025 bill in the state House that aimed to further curtail federal immigration authorities’ access to public spaces in Colorado, from government buildings to libraries to public schools. He said he is “severely disappointed that Shannon Bird was the only House Democrat to vote against it.”

“She’s trying to pull a fast one,” Rutinel told folks hiding from the sun at the covered Brighton Writers Group booth at Thorntonfest. “We need to be fighting for the people who are struggling.”

Voters in the 8th District, he said, may have wanted more oversight at the southern border than what former President Joe Biden provided, but they don’t want the chaotic — and sometimes violent — mass deportation agenda of this president.

“People tell me Donald Trump and Gabe Evans were going to go after the criminals — and they’re going after the grandmas,” he said. “People are telling me they feel lied to.”

Plenty of agreement

Bird calls Rutinel’s accusation on the ICE bill apocryphal. She said her “no” vote on Senate Bill 276 happened during a committee hearing on the bill, which she said needed improvement before going to a floor vote in the House.

Bird said she regrets being absent the day the bill came up for a floor vote in the House a few weeks later — a missed vote she blames on a family medical emergency.

“It was one of the few votes I missed, and I regret that,” Bird told The Post earlier this year.

Rutinel, she said, has been using that bill to mischaracterize her position on ICE and Trump’s immigration policy. She says she has the only , with requirements for body-worn cameras and officers who are better vetted and trained.

“I think Manny has a record he can’t defend,” she said.

Immigration will prove an important issue in the 8th Congressional District, said Preuhs, the political science professor. Though ICE’s footprint in Colorado has been lighter than in other American cities, the issue is never far from a district with so many Latinos.

“You have a Democratic voting constituency that is adamantly against Trump and they’re looking for a strong advocate for their position,” Preuhs said.

But if the forum in Greeley last month showed anything, it’s that the two Democrats running for the nomination agree on much — including opposition to a federal ban on hydraulic fracturing to extract oil, support for a ban on oil and gas leases on federal land, and support for a boost in the federal minimum wage.

In recent weeks, Rutinel has been on the defensive after  that he had reversed or softened past positions in support of a fracking ban, cancellation of student debt and a single-payer healthcare system. His campaign pushed back on some of the outlet’s characterizations.

The 8th Congressional District partially lies in Weld County, which is Colorado’s most prolific producer of oil and gas. Agriculture is also a big presence in the district, and both Bird and Rutinel have slammed Trump’s tariffs, many of which were overturned in February by the Supreme Court, as unfriendly to farmers.

“Congress needs to pass legislation to make it clear who has the power to tariff,” Bird told The Post.

Rutinel, who was an economist for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers before getting into politics, was equally tough on the body he is vying to join when it comes to preserving its power of the purse.

“If we had a willingness from Congress to pull back these corrupt and chaotic tariff policies, we could bring down prices,” he said. “It’s putting so many of the family farms and ranchers at risk.”

The Republican gubernatorial candidate has attended only one debate alongside his two opponents. He’s never run for office before and has few prominent Republican officials backing him. His backstory is extensive and full of the sort of bizarre detail that, in a pre-Donald Trump world, would likely have caused his campaign to implode before it left the launchpad.

And after the June 30 primary, Marx very well may be Colorado Republicans’ candidate for governor.

“This is pretty wild,” he said recently, standing in front of his nonprofit’s indoor shooting range, a handgun holstered in his waistband. “Someone like me, running for governor.”

The comment appeared to come less from bewilderment at how far he’d come than from vindicated confidence. And it belied what has been a thoroughly, carefully atypical campaign — one that has leaned on the 60-year-old’s charm, his direct outreach to voters and his use of the now-familiar pitch of a political outsider who shares voters’ distaste for elected politicians and campaign-speak.

As he’s outraised other Republicans and seized headlines, Marx has also been bombarded with questions about his background from reporters and from skeptical conservatives.

He’s said he was forced to kill a man as a child and, when asked by , he replied, “Does it matter?” He once ran martial arts schools in Hawaii and is a black belt in “Cajun Karate,” a form of martial arts created by his dad, Karl.

He describes himself as a “high-risk humanitarian” who trains law enforcement and provides trauma relief to people in the United States and overseas, including in conflict zones. Another humanitarian confirmed that Marx was in Iraq a decade ago and that, though he was largely behind the front lines, he was present when medical workers came under fire at least twice.

Marx also talks frequently about praying to free people from demons that, , can be attracted by porn or unmarried couples living together. In one 2023 podcast, Marx and that, after his dog identified a supernatural presence in a couple at a pool, he set a woman free from “five demons that had been assigned to her.”

In an interview with The Denver Post, Marx said it didn’t matter if reporters believed him and that he was comfortable with scrutiny of his background, even as it’s drawn .

Voters will decide, he said, arguing that he was qualified because of their support.

“Judge us by the ability to run a campaign,” he said, “and look at the guy who’s never done it, nothing — but stepped into it, was aware of the problem and the need, (and) assessed what needed to be done to win. I have avoided some pitfalls of doing it the old way, but the action I’ve taken has broken records.”

Marx raised $2.67 million through late May, the most of any Republican gubernatorial candidate up to that point in at least 20 years. To get on the ballot, he submitted more than 28,000 signatures, more than any gubernatorial campaign since at least 2014. Those signatures were not verified because Marx earned ballot access through an assembly vote.

U.S. Rep. Lauren Boebert, who did not return messages seeking comment; musician Ted Nugent; three county sheriffs; and Mark Geist, who defended the U.S. embassy in Libya in 2012. (Marx’s campaign has also paid Geist and his wife for consulting and security work.)

Dick Wadhams, a former chairman of the state GOP and critic of Marx, said Marx had run “the strangest campaign I’ve seen in all the years I’ve been involved in this business.”

He argued that Marx’s beliefs about demons and his assertions that he’s helped tens of thousands of women and children — some amount of which he’s claimed to have rescued, alongside more he’s said he’s helped by providing them stuffed animals and trauma support — were so outlandish that they would cost the party in down-ballot races in November.

Kristi Burton Brown, another former state party chair, questioned Marx’s apparent disinterest in policy discussions and debates. His opponents, state Rep. Scott Bottoms and state Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer, have called him a fraud and a con man; both said they would not support him should he win the nomination.

‘New territory for a political campaign’

But Wadhams and Burton Brown both acknowledged that Marx’s campaign had proven successful, marshalling what Wadhams described as Marx’s  base of support and expanding it with direct mail and “very aggressive social media outreach.” Marx’s campaign has spent $725,000 on mailers — nearly what Kirkmeyer and Bottoms have raised combined — and he’s leaned into videos and podcast appearances.

When the moderator of one debate, a conservative talk show host, sent Marx a letter pressing him for specifics on his background, Marx skipped the event and organized a rally instead. His campaign later released photos showing more people had attended his event than the debate.

“We are in such new territory for a political campaign in Colorado — frankly, in the nation,” Wadhams said, incredulous at Marx’s TV interviews.

A quick look at the Colorado governor candidates running in this month’s Democratic, Republican primaries

Marx has eschewed dense policy discussions -- an intentional choice, he said, to let voters' eyes adjust to his background.

That hasn't been a concern for his supporters. Marx is likable, which is "gold" in politics, said Jeff Hunt, a conservative activist and radio host. He first met Marx at , where Marx teased his candidacy.

" 'He doesn't have policy chops' -- alright, well, he still outraises everybody," Hunt said. " 'He’s got a unique background' -- well, he’s still driving more people to his events. 'He won't debate' -- he still has energy and big rallies. (His opponents) are trying to figure out an angle. But when you're dealing with somebody who has such a big personality force, it����ap just not landing."

Hunt continued: "I've told him (that) if I was a political strategist, I would not ever have told him to tell the stories he has told or the things he has written about in his book ... That����ap part of the enjoyment I have in this whole process. Alright man, you are 100% yourself."

Marx has said he was the victim of profound abuse as a child. In his memoir, he wrote that his stepfather made him behead a cat at age 3. Marx wrote that at age 7, his stepfather put his hand around his own and forced him to shoot and kill a man. His stepfather, he alleges, then smeared blood on him and buried the man beneath the house.

The sheriff of Simpson County, Mississippi, where the shooting allegedly took place, did not respond to messages seeking comment.

A Marine veteran who moved to Colorado to work for Focus on the Family, Marx founded All Things Possible in 2003 "to reach people with the gospel of Jesus Christ through outreaches and crusades primarily to youth," according to the group's first tax filing. By 2024, ATP's annual revenue had surpassed $7.6 million.

A closer look at ministry

ATP has done outreach to youth in prisons and focused on "trauma response," Marx said, which includes handing out stuffed animals loaded with recorded prayers and songs. In an email, All Things Possible said the ministry was separate from Marx's campaign. Marx said he and his wife resigned from the group after he announced his candidacy.

But overlap remains: Marx's campaign address is at the ministry's training center outside of Colorado Springs, which is also the home he sold to the nonprofit for nearly $3 million in 2024. His campaign manager was also listed as an ATP board member on its most recent tax returns.

Marx has said he and his group have worked overseas, including in Iraq, Syria, Israel and southeast Asia. Its tax filings show it has spent more than $4.3 million on those efforts in recent years, though those documents also state ATP had no standing personnel or offices in those countries.

Dave Eubank, the American head of the Myanmar-based , said he met Marx in California roughly 15 years ago. He later invited Marx to Myanmar, where Eubank's group supports rebels and civilians caught in that nation's civil war.

The trip served as Marx's introduction to "high-risk humanitarianism."

Within a year, Marx asked if Eubank and his medics would like to go to Iraq to help civilians amid fighting between the Islamic State military group and Kurdish and Iraqi military units. Eubank said Marx's group funded his efforts.

"I think he came to Syria once while we were there, briefly, and then he came to Iraq multiple times while we were there," Eubank said, praising Marx as a friend and ally. "Usually it was during some lull in the fighting, but not always. He was in at least one ... maybe two engagements with us, when we were providing medical care when we came under direct fire."

Marx has also said he called in an airstrike on Islamic State militants. Eubank said he hadn't heard that story before it came up during Marx's 9News interview in late May. When Eubank was working in the Middle East, he said, the U.S. military had dropped smoke at his request to cover escaping civilians. (The Post sought comment on Marx's claims from U.S. Central Command, which oversees the Middle East. In an email, an unnamed representative said military officials "have nothing for you on this.")

Marx said ATP's goal is now to "equip and encourage" law enforcement . In a statement, Colorado Springs Police Lt. Korey Hutchinson, the lead investigator of the Colorado Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, said his department "has not conducted any direct work or formal collaboration" with ATP.

"However, we have heard positive feedback from ICAC units and personnel across the country regarding the assistance and support they provide," Hutchinson said, referring to ATP's "wellness support for investigators of child exploitation crimes."

Marx said his group also helped train law enforcement involved in .

Abigail Meyer, spokeswoman for the U.S. Marshals Service, which led the operation, said that, "according to those who ran this operation," Marx's group was not involved.

Political outsider or not, in the gubernatorial campaign -- audits of the state budget, support for police and immigration enforcement, strict Medicaid work requirements, tax relief, school choice -- will be largely familiar to voters in the Republican primary.

His website's includes a number of questionable statutory and constitutional citations; one statute it references has been repealed, and another purports to link a constitutional prohibition on sex discrimination to homeowner's insurance spikes. He told The Post that the platform was written by an "attorney who did work for Elon Musk."

Marx said he's withholding some plans for the general election. Besides, he argued, the GOP primary wouldn't be decided on policy.

"I don't think Barb or Scott ... are three degrees different on policy positions (from me)," he said, referring to Kirkmeyer and Bottoms. The real difference, he argued, will be who can convince voters they can win.

"And I think, just naturally, I'm comfortable in that arena."

WASHINGTON (AP) — A bill to provide nearly $70 billion for  narrowly passed the House on Tuesday and now goes to President Donald Trump for his signature, bolstering the administration’s deportation agenda for the remainder of his time in the White House.

Republicans used their majority to get the bill over the finish line, funding a pair of Homeland Security agencies through the next three years. The bill passed by a vote of 214-212, over the objections of Democrats. Trump is expected to sign it into law on Wednesday.

The White House says the bill will provide $38 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, $26 billion for the Border Patrol and another $5 billion to cover unforeseen costs. It frontloads routine annual funding, ensuring a virtually uninterrupted flow of money as the Trump administration  some 1 million people per year.

 needed near-perfect attendance and unity on his side to complete weeks of action. The legislation got sidetracked over $1 billion for White House security, including for Trump’s , and a $1.8 billion fund to compensate his allies who claim they have been unjustly investigated and prosecuted. Those proposals proved politically toxic and .

Now, the bill is focused entirely on immigration enforcement, a topic that Republicans have treated as a defining issue between the two major political parties and one they hope will carry them to victory in this year’s .

“It’s long overdue,” said Johnson, R-La., of the bill. “We have to fund border security and immigration enforcement, and it’s sad that Republicans have to do it on our own.”

But Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Texas called it a “slush fund for ICE.”

Funding accelerates Trump’s deportation agenda

The funding comes on top of the nearly $140 billion that the Republican-controlled Congress gave ICE and Customs and Border Protection last year as part of .

Democrats objected to giving the agencies more money without significant changes in the way they operate after the deaths of �����Ի��� in Minneapolis. For example, Democrats insisted that agents remove masks and be required to display their ID badges during enforcement operations and that they get a judicial warrant before entering private property. Instead, the funding will come with virtually no strings attached.

Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said Republicans weren’t focused on the top priorities of the American people and have cut access to Medicaid and nutrition assistance through Trump’s earlier tax and spending cut bill.

“Republicans have now come back for more, to give ICE and Donald Trump’s violent mass deportation machine another $70 billion blank check, with no oversight, no accountability and no guardrails,” Jeffries said.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise countered that Democrats were not adequately supportive of law enforcement.

“Make no mistake, if you’re voting yes, you’re not only voting to secure America’s border, you’re voting to fund law enforcement,” Scalise said. “And if you vote no, you are voting to defund the police.”

Homeland Security faced the longest shutdown in history

The package is the result of  in Congress after Democrats refused to fund the Department of Homeland Security in the wake of  in Minneapolis and other American cities, leading to .

Negotiations had been underway with the White House to alter ICE operations as Democrats were demanding. When those negotiations failed, Republicans turned to  to get around the filibuster and pass the immigration funding with no Democratic votes.

Rep. Jodey Arrington, R-Texas, the chairman of the Budget Committee, said the money would provide “regular, normal funding” that ICE and the Border Patrol would get through the annual budgeting process.

“And we’re going to do it, not for one year, but for three years, so we don’t end up here again.”

 on the legislation last week during an overnight session on a nearly party-line vote, with Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska the only Republican to oppose it.

Money comes at a pivotal time for Trump’s immigration agenda

The money will come at a pivotal time for the Department of Homeland Security, which is under new leadership after Trump replaced  with new  in March.

�³󾱱����� to keep the department out of the headlines, the administration is under pressure from anti-immigration advocates to deliver on Trump’s campaign promise of  in American history.

At the same time, the administration is making it more difficult for certain legal immigrants to remain in the U.S. with  or to .

Lawmakers clash over DHS priorities

On the House side, Johnson had little margin for error. Rep. Kevin Kiley, I-Calif., ended up siding with Democrats on the party-line vote.

Leading up to the vote, Democrats portrayed DHS as an agency that has used its new resources to buy private jets for its leadership, warehouse immigrants in deplorable conditions and attack U.S. citizens.

“Republican leadership likes to talk a lot about common sense, but where is the common sense in giving this federal agency essentially unlimited funds without a single reform in place?” asked Rep. Pete Aguilar, chair of the House Democratic Caucus.

Republicans countered that they were fulfilling their duty to safeguard the nation and support the men and women charged with enforcing the law.

“Democrats can say whatever they want, but what it����ap about is public safety. What����ap it about is keeping Americans safe,” said Rep. Michelle Fischbach, R-Minn.

The suit, filed in federal court in Denver, seeks to invalidate , which Gov. Jared Polis signed into law last week. The company alleges that only the federal government can dictate how its Aurora detention center is run and that the new law has “the purpose and effect of making it more difficult for federal immigration officers to carry out their responsibilities in Colorado and impose direct burdens and requirements on facilities used in immigration operations.” The company asks a federal judge to strike down the law, and it filed a separate motion seeking to immediately suspend the law, which largely kicked into effect last week.

Advocates have long criticized the conditions at the Aurora facility, and those complaints — alongside concerns that more facilities could open in the state — helped drive HB 1276’s contents. Among other changes, the law requires health officials to inspect the Aurora facility at least every three months to ensure the detention center abides by safety standards related to food and water quality, confinement conditions and medical services.

It requires the facility to give broad access to local officials investigating health outbreaks — a change that comes after Adams County officials admonished Geo for refusing to allow interviews of facility staff during an outbreak investigation earlier this year.

If Geo staff deny inspectors access to the facility, then the state can impose a $50,000 penalty on the company.

Though the 1,530-bed facility does not hold minor detainees, the new law also prohibits Geo from housing children with unrelated adults, and it requires that the facility have medical and mental health professionals on site at all times.

Geo Group representatives did not immediately respond to an email sent early Monday evening. In its lawsuit, the company argued that it was already subject to congressionally imposed regulations and that Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which contracted with Geo to run the Aurora center, has ultimate authority over the facility’s access.

In an argument that has proven successful in other states where lawmakers have sought to regulate ICE activity, Geo also argued that the law discriminates against both the company and the federal government by applying standards to detention centers that the state does not levy against other prisons.

“Frequent and unpredictable inspections alone will increase the cost to, and administrative burden on, GEO and the federal government,” the company wrote.

In a statement, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser said there were “disturbing reports about unhealthy living conditions” at the Aurora facility. A University of Utah student briefly detained there last year said she was served soggy and moldy food. Last summer, the air conditioning broke or was turned up too high, according to court filings. In a lawsuit filed against ICE last year, another former detainee said he was served spoiled milk.

Lawmakers had previously given state health officials the authority to conduct visits to the facility, and the Adams County Health Department launched an investigation into the facility earlier this year after immigrant advocates alleged that gastrointestinal illness was rampant. The health agency later said that Geo Group refused to allow inspectors to interview facility staff.

“Meeting basic health and safety requirements and being transparent about facility conditions are necessary for the humane treatment of immigrants who are going through civil immigration proceedings,” Weiser wrote.

Updated 8:30 a.m. June 9, 2026: Because of a reporter’s error, the original version of this story mischaracterized who is detained at the Aurora Geo facility. The facility does not detain minors.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The State Department will offer a “premium” expedited service for to come to the United States that will set applicants back $750 — on top of the initial fee of $185.

In a notice to be published in the Federal Register this week, the department will unveil a pilot program that will allow visa applicants to pay the $750 to schedule an appointment for an interview within 10 days of the payment at select U.S. embassies and consulates.

The pilot program will run from July 1 to Dec. 31, according to internal documents obtained by The Associated Press and a State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the program has not yet been announced.

The move is a potential effort to ease conditions caused by the Trump administration’s push to . The administration has cracked down on most forms of migration for foreigners — be paid for visa processing in some, mainly African, countries and requiring years of personal history, including .

The new requirements have caused delays in visa processing around the world, prompting complaints.

Wait times for visa interviews for citizens of countries that are not part of the Visa Waiver Program can be several months if not longer. But paying the fee for the “optional premium add-on service” does not guarantee that a visa will be issued.

The embassies and consulates at which the expedited service will be available are to be announced before the program takes effect on July 1. The pilot program will run through the end of the year but could be extended depending on demand.

But though some of their party, it’s far less certain if that discontent is strong enough — or focused enough — to pull off a seismic upset against Hickenlooper, the former brewpub owner and onetime Denver mayor and Colorado governor now finishing his first term in the Senate.

Gonzales’ progressive bona fides in Denver and the state Capitol will have to overcome Hickenlooper’s experience, his comparably vast fundraising and the inherent advantage that comes from being a fixture of Colorado’s political scenery.

“There doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of collective outrage at Colorado’s incumbents — like John Hickenlooper, like (fellow U.S. Sen.) Michael Bennet,” said Seth Masket, a political scientist at the University of Denver. “We’ll see what actually happens in the election. But that����ap really Gonzales’ best ticket to office — if there’s a lot of anger for incumbents seeming too complacent nationally or not willing to fight hard enough against the Trump administration.”

Gonzales, a 43-year-old two-term state senator from Denver, has framed her candidacy in large part as a progressive critique and challenge to the Democratic Party’s more moderate standard-bearers, like Hickenlooper.

“Does Colorado want to continue with more of the same, go-along-to-get-along politics?” said Gonzales, whose legislative work has focused on immigrant rights and progressive staples like tenant protections. “… Over the past six years, (Hickenlooper) has not met that moment in responding to (voters’ economic) pain — versus my track record, where I have shown up, done the work, advanced progressive and durable policy that has made concrete impacts on people’s lives.”

Hickenlooper, in contrast, repeatedly spoke of his candidacy — and his desired return to office — as laser-focused on responding to President Donald Trump. In a phone call last week, he didn’t acknowledge Gonzales and sidestepped a question about anti-incumbency feelings among Democratic voters.

He said his campaign was about “fighting back” against the president and responding to healthcare cuts and the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. He highlighted his own extensive experience as mayor and governor, and his work in helping to pass the

“Right now, with Trump in office, that����ap what we need,” said Hickenlooper, who raised $40.7 million in 2020 on his way to defeating Republican U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner. “We need that experience of being focused on his lawlessness and combating his reckless attacks on our traditions, on the American way.”

The primary election is June 30, and mail ballots will be sent to voters beginning Monday. Both Democratic and unaffiliated voters can weigh in on the race.

The winner of the Democratic contest will face off in November against state Sen. Mark Baisley, of Woodland Park, who is running unopposed in the Republican primary.

In a nod to the progressive messaging adopted by both Hickenlooper and Gonzales’ campaigns, Baisley said they appeared to be trying to “out-liberal the other person.” He, too, was hoping to harness voter dissatisfaction — albeit in a far more conservative direction — to fuel what would be an upset win in November.

“There has been such a long run of single-party control in Colorado that everyone’s realizing that their freedoms have been curtailed in an enormous way,” he said.

Hickenlooper seeks a final term

Now age 74, Hickenlooper’s potential second term would end a month before his 81st birthday. He has already said he wouldn’t run for a third term, and he told The Denver Post that he would serve the entirety of his second term, should he be reelected.

“We’re going to have to rebuild better,” he said of his plans for a second term, echoing a slogan from the early years of Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration. He has called for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to be overhauled, and he’s backed broad reforms to the agency’s practices. “That����ap part of what I’m committing to, in my six years — I think we cannot just build back what we had, but build back in a much better form from what we should’ve had.”

Gonzales has served in the legislature since her election in 2018. A Yale University graduate, she was an organizer and worked for a prominent immigration law firm in Denver.

She said she would support “Medicare For All,” a proposal that typically means single-payer health insurance coverage for all Americans in a program run by the government. To achieve its passage and other reforms, she would advocate for ending the Senate’s filibuster, the rule that requires at least 60 senators to agree to end debate and move to a vote. She supports expanding the U.S. Supreme Court and instituting term limits for both justices and federal lawmakers.

She said she would not support U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York to continue on as the Democratic leader. She also said she would not support sending any military aid to Israel.

“I’m not only going to talk about standing up to Trump,” she said. “I also want to share the vision where all Coloradans can thrive.”

Hickenlooper said he supported giving Americans “universal (health insurance) coverage” but did not commit to supporting Medicare for All specifically. He highlighted to increase healthcare pricing transparency.

He said he was open to court reforms that would include term limits and a set number of appointments per presidential administration. Asked about Schumer, he said that he didn’t think the New York senator wanted to continue as minority leader and that other, younger lawmakers were interested.

He noted that the filibuster had prevented some Republican priorities from passing under the Trump administration, but he said he wasn’t “ruling out addressing the filibuster.” In 2021, he said he wanted to “change the filibuster” to pass voting rights legislation.

Hickenlooper recently voted against sending bulldozers and some munitions to Israel. Campaign spokesman Jess Cohen said Hickenlooper “would continue to vote against weapons that fuel the war,” which Cohen said included the conflicts in Iran, the Gaza Strip and Lebanon.

Scant polling has been released about the race. showed Hickenlooper with a 32-point lead — 45% to 13% — over Gonzales, with his other challengers in the low single digits. Thirty-seven percent of respondents were unsure.

But the race tightened significantly after the respondents — 739 likely Democratic primary voters — were read “neutral-to-positive” biographies of the candidates. Those biographies were not included in the poll release. The results had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Gonzales faces name ID disparity

When it comes to fundraising, meanwhile, Hickenlooper has been dominant.

, the most recent reporting deadline, he had raised $5.7 million in total contributions and had more than $4 million in the bank. Gonzales, who entered the race in December, had raised $443,000 by March 31 and had just over $114,000 on hand, .

The fundraising disparity will make it harder for Gonzales to increase her name recognition across the state, already at a deficit against a well-known figure like Hickenlooper. Hickenlooper is taking the race seriously enough that he’s running ads to support his campaign, Masket noted. But the strength of his name recognition alone presents a formidable challenge.

“That’s hard, particularly against someone like Hickenlooper, who’s been in public life in Denver and Colorado for several decades now, and he was a popular governor, a popular mayor,” he said. “That’s very hard to overcome.”

Gonzales has criticized Hickenlooper’s support for several Trump cabinet nominees; , the third-most among Democratic senators.

He voted against 13 cabinet nominees last year, according to Ballotpedia, and Hickenlooper said he’d voted against 96% of Trump’s appointments overall. He said he wouldn’t vote again for any of the nominees he did support.

“I thought they would push back on the president,” he said. “I thought that a good executive — even a bad executive — if they get a senior staff that challenges them and pushes back, they make better decisions. … And yet this group of appointees, not one of them have come outside their shell and pushed back.”

To offset the fundraising disparity in the campaign, Gonzales has launched a statewide tour, and she earned her place on the ballot at the party’s statewide assembly earlier this spring. (Hickenlooper initially participated before withdrawing from the assembly process, instead filing petitions to make the ballot.)

Last month, Gonzales appeared , a leftist personality who has backed progressive Democratic candidates in other states. On Wednesday, Gonzales’ campaign announced that she and Melat Kiros, who is hoping to ride a similar upset wave and unseat longtime incumbent U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette of Denver, would participate in a Denver rally with Piker on June 14.