passed on a near-party-line , with nearly all of the chamber’s Democrats in support against their Republican colleagues and a lone Democratic dissenter. After it passed the abortion measure, the House then passed , which would require inspections of immigrant detention centers and direct the state to publicly disclose when it receives federal immigration subpoenas.

Both bills now go to the Senate, with just over two weeks remaining in this year’s legislative session.

If passed, the abortion measure would require both public and private colleges and universities with health centers to provide students access to abortion medications that end pregnancies. Any campus with an on-site pharmacy would be required to stock the medication. At colleges without pharmacies, health center providers would directly dispense the pills or write prescriptions that could be filled elsewhere.

The bill would go into effect Aug. 1, 2027. It would not apply if a college says that providing the medication would violate its religious principles. Colleges would also be exempted if they could lose grant funding for stocking the pills; if federal regulators should later pull approval for an abortion medication, the measure would direct colleges to follow that federal guidance.

The standard abortion prescription typically involves two medications, typically mifepristone and misoprostol, taken within a day or two of each other, .

Rep. Lorena Garcia, an Adams County Democrat who sponsored the bill, said Monday that the measure came from students. The bill strengthens Colorado’s already robust abortion protections, with both state law and the state constitution protecting abortion access.

“This bill is nothing more than making sure that the constitutional right — that our voters put in place — is made accessible when people have gone through the challenging and difficult process of making the decision to have an abortion; that the abortion pill is accessible if they are on campus,” she told colleagues.

In the bill’s fiscal impact note, legislative analysts projected zero direct expense to the state from the bill, since it doesn’t require the state to cover the cost of the medication unless a student already qualifies otherwise.

Students who testified at a committee hearing earlier this month said providing access at health centers would help provide students with reliable and nearby access to abortion care.

One student from the University of Colorado’s Colorado Springs campus — whose testimony was read by an organizer from the advocacy group New Era — said she didn’t know where to go when she decided to end her pregnancy. She nearly went to a “fake abortion clinic,” she said.

Another student, Paola Ordoñez Sanchez at Colorado State University, said she had an unexpected pregnancy in October. When she sought an abortion, she said, she had to coordinate transportation, miss classes and figure out how to pay for her treatment off-campus.

She tearfully said she “fell through the cracks” of CSU’s health system.

Republicans consistently have opposed Democrats’ efforts to expand abortion access, and they did so again with HB-1335, arguing that the abortion pills could have negative side effects on the women who take them. House leadership limited debate on an initial vote Friday.

“Adoption is also a choice. If we’re going to provide information, we should provide it all,” said Rep. Rebecca Keltie, a Colorado Springs Republican. She was supporting an amendment that would’ve blocked colleges from using various revenue sources to promote the availability of the pills.

“We should make it fair and equitable and then let that person decide for themselves,” she said.

The lone Democrat who opposed the bill was Rep. Bob Marshall, who represents Highlands Ranch. He said he’d committed not to support further expansions of abortion rights. He also said he didn’t understand the need for the bill because abortion pills can be dispensed in myriad other ways.

House passes immigration bill

Also Monday, the chamber cleared HB-1276 on a straight 42-21 party-line vote.

The bill would tweak several parts of state law, largely in response to events from the first year of the immigration crackdown under President Donald Trump. After Gov. Jared Polis has repeatedly tried to comply with a federal immigration subpoena, HB-1276 would generally require the state to publicly disclose when it receives those types of requests.

It would direct the state to notify people whose information is about to be released.

The measure would also prohibit U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from entering nonpublic areas of jails. That comes after an advocacy group in the high country has warned that immigrants are being arrested inside the facilities after posting bail or otherwise being released. Lawmakers had initially blocked ICE from entering those areas in legislation debated last year, but they struck that provision before the bill passed.

The new measure would require regular inspections of immigration detention centers, stepping up state regulators’ current ability to visit at will. That comes amid ongoing concerns about the conditions inside Colorado’s only active detention center in Aurora — and amid ICE’s plans to open more facilities here.

Finally, the bill would tighten penalties for state and local agencies when their employees illegally share information with ICE. Lawmakers enacted a penalty of up to $50,000 last year for any employee who illegally collaborates with federal immigration authorities; this year’s bill would apply that fine to agencies that either directed their employees to break the law or intentionally failed to mitigate that risk.

That provision comes after a Mesa County deputy appeared to violate state law last year, when he alerted ICE to a Brazilian college student’s presence on Interstate 70.

The bill still needs approval by the Senate before it goes to the governor. On Thursday, Polis declined to take a position and indicated he wasn’t aware of what the measure would do.

“There’s one thing … which we are generally supportive of, which is inspection of detention facilities,” he said after a reporter listed the bill’s contents. “There are other things that we might not be, so we’re always happy to provide feedback to legislators about where we are. When the bill passes, I weigh the good and the bad and make a conclusion about what’s in the best interest of the state.”

The session’s dying light usually includes the sweeping demise of bills big and small. On Thursday, the Senate Local Government and Housing Committee brought that extinguishment to . Part of a yearslong effort to reshape local zoning rules, the bill would’ve prohibited local governments from requiring that single-family home lots be larger than 2,000 square feet, making larger minimum sizes against state law.

The measure passed the House in late February, only to hit the skids in the Senate, which has taken a more critical view of zoning reforms. The bill died on a 7-0 vote after its Senate sponsor, Denver Democrat Sen. Matt Ball, asked for its euthanization following testimony and debate.

Colorado lawmakers grapple with limits on kids’ AI chatbot interactions — and access to adult content

But the legislature is not done with this debate. On Thursday, the same Senate committee is set to take up , which would allow a homeowner to sell off a smaller section of their lot, generally without local government approval.

After today, 16 days remain in the legislative session, and HB-1308's hearing is but one of several policy debates set for this week.

The fight over data center policy is still dragging along. The bill that would rewrite Colorado's dormant artificial intelligence regulations is expected to be introduced this week. The is still getting its final tweaks, as is legislation related to , which provides Medicaid-like care for immigrant children and pregnant women who lack legal status.

Here's what else to expect this week:

Today

The House is set to take up several bills on third reading, which is a chamber's final vote. Those include , which would put additional limitations in place on Colorado officials' ability to work with federal immigration authorities, and , which would generally require universities and colleges to offer abortion medication at their health centers.

The Senate is set for a first floor vote on , which would generally block companies from using customers' personalized data to set individualized prices or wages.

After welcoming members of Denver Summit FC first thing Monday, the Senate also began debating . That measure would institute several regulations related to sports betting, though its sponsors stripped a provision that would've banned prop betting.

Tuesday

The House Judiciary Committee will take up three bills related to prison population management (Senate Bills , and ).

The Senate Appropriations Committee has a very long calendar to advance or dispatch a number of bills. That's standard: When the budget bill is (just about) settled, the mountain of legislation with fiscal impacts are then clear to get fuller debates.

The Senate Finance Committee will debate , which would regulate hemp-derived THC beverages.

Thursday

The Senate's Local Government and Housing Committee will take up the aforementioned HB-1308, the lot-splitting bill.

When the on the Trump administration’s plans to and , people from more than dozen other countries will pay close attention, perhaps none more than an estimated 200,000 .

Many Salvadorans have lived in the United States for 25 years under Temporary Protected Status, which allows those already in the country to stay with work permits in increments of up to 18 months as long as the Homeland Security secretary deems conditions unsafe for return. President Donald Trump’s former secretary, that came up for renewal under her watch.

Court arguments Wednesday will focus on whether the administration properly weighed conditions in Haiti and Syria when it ended TPS and if it prejudiced non-white immigrants. The decisions affected about 350,000 Haitians and 6,000 Syrians.

, occupies a special place as a U.S. ally among the leaders of the 17 countries that were designated with TPS when Trump took office, covering a universe of 1.3 million people that more than doubled during Joe Biden’s presidency. Extending TPS would secure a pipeline of remittances that people send to family back home, but when it is up for renewal Sept. 9.

Temporary, but making permanent homes

José Urías, who started a family, fathered two American children and founded a company that has built more than 150 homes in the Boston area, said he hasn’t lost hope

“It����ap not guaranteed, but it����ap not impossible either,” he said in an interview from his home in Boston.

Salvadorans with TPS have been living and working legally in the United States since at least 2001, when two major earthquakes that hit the Central American country resulted in special status. The vast majority have children born in the U.S.

Many have lost their jobs and fear being detained, separated from their American family members, and deported to a country they barely know.

“Our life is based here, I have lived more of my life here than in El Salvador,” said Urías, 47. “It����ap like living out your American Dream, and then suddenly — just like that — being told your time is up, as if to say, ‘We don’t need you anymore,’ and having someone try to cut away everything you’ve built.”

After crossing the border from Mexico in 1994, he worked delivering furniture, washing dishes, and cooking in restaurants, before opening his construction business about 18 years ago.

First he started remodeling houses, and then building and selling them. He employs three people at a firm that sells houses and works with seven contractors that employ dozens of people.

Urías married a Salvadoran who is a TPS beneficiary too. They have two sons who live with them — a 19-year-old sophomore at Babson College in Boston; and a 13-year-old.

Two of his 13 siblings were born in the U.S. and the others have permanent legal residency as well as his parents. The whole family lives in the U.S., and he said that his two American sons will stay in the U.S because it is their country and the place where they will find opportunities, even if the parents lose their TPS protections.

“You feel a sense of fulfillment, because I’ve been able to attain so many things I never imagined,” Urías said in Spanish. “Obviously through struggle and sacrifice, and by adapting to the lifestyle here — to the local culture and the language.”

What is TPS?

to prevent deportations to countries suffering from natural disasters or civil strife. When Trump took office, Venezuelans comprised the largest group of beneficiaries, followed by Haitians and Salvadorans.

Trump has ended TPS for about 1 million people from countries including Venezuela, Honduras, Nicaragua and Afghanistan.

Trump and El Salvador’s Bukele share a militarized approach to fight transnational organized crime and hard rhetoric around national security and law and order.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio visited El Salvador during his first trip in office, securing a deal with Bukele for El Salvador of any nationality. Barely a month later, the U.S. sent to a notorious maximum-security prison in El Salvador.

El Salvador has swung from one of the most violent places in the world to one of the safest countries in the Americas since Bukele ordered mass arrests in 2022. In April 2025, the State Department upgraded El Salvador’s travel advisory to its highest level, citing a drop in violent crimes and murders.

In 2019, during the first Trump administration, Bukele asked Trump to extend TPS. It remained because there were lawsuits.

“We cannot rely solely on friendly relations,” said José Palma, a Salvadoran TPS holder and national coordinator at the National TPS Alliance, an advocacy group that has fought the termination of TPS for several countries at the federal courts. “Nothing can be guaranteed with this administration in the United States at this moment.”

Bukele has not publicly requested an extension of TPS, even though ending it could be an economic blow. Salvadorans in the U.S. sent $9.9 billion in remittances to El Salvador last year, representing 24% of country’s gross domestic product, according to El Salvador’s central bank.

“I don’t think that the fact that Bukele has really delivered on Trump’s priorities necessarily means that Trump will respond to TPS extension requests,” said Rebecca Bill-Chavez, chief executive officer of the Washington-based think tank Inter-American Dialogue. “I don’t think there is any guarantee.”

She is the only member of her family with no permanent legal status

Lorena Zepeda, 58, crossed the Mexican border in 1991, three years after her mother left their home country in search of a job in the United States that would allow her to send money to her six children. The only job Zepeda could find in El Salvador was sweeping floors in schools, so she followed her mother’s path and reunited with her in Los Angeles.

She got her first job cooking at a school and later worked at the front desk in hotels, caring for the elderly, and now as an organizer at the Central American Resource Center (CARECEN), one of the largest immigrant-rights organizations in the U.S.

She married a Salvadoran TPS holder, who became a green card holder in February 2025. They have two children who live in their home — a 22-year-old son and college graduate and a 20-year-old daughter who is studying to become a teacher.

Zepeda, who has sent $200 to $400 monthly to sisters in El Salvador for more than three decades, is the only one in her family who does not have permanent status in the U.S. She is still in the process of obtaining permanent residency, but the process has been delayed because her asylum application was denied and she has a deportation order from 1999.

If TPS ends, she would be the only one in her family at risk of deportation. She said that none of her children want to move to El Salvador.

“I feel quite sad,” Zepeda said in Spanish. “Sadly, we know that I am not protected, but I have faith in God.”

Associated Press writer Marcos Aleman contributed from San Salvador, El Salvador.

Hayam El Gamal and her five children, ages 5 to 18, were released in Colorado, their attorney, Eric Lee, said in an email Sunday.

Federal immigration agents arrested the family Saturday in Colorado, hours after they returned to Colorado following their court-ordered release from a Texas detention facility, Lee said.

The family was flown to Detroit and was headed to New Jersey to be deported when the plane was forced to turn around and return to Detroit, Lee said. The family then returned to Denver.

Two federal judges issued orders Saturday barring the Trump administration from removing the family from Colorado or the U.S., according to

A federal magistrate judge on April 20 approved the release of El Gamal and her five from a federal detention center in Dilley, Texas, with the stipulation that they appear at future immigration hearings. They had been there for 10 months after El Gamal’s husband, Mohamed Soliman, was arrested in a June 2025 Molotov cocktail attack against demonstrators on the Boulder mall.

The El Gamal family has received due process and a final order of removal was issued, U.S. Department of Homeland spokeswoman Lauren Bis wrote in an email.

“Despite receiving full due process, this activist judge appointed by Bill Clinton is releasing this terrorist����ap family onto American streets AGAIN,” Bis wrote. “Under President Trump, DHS will continue to fight for the removal of those who have no right to be in our country—especially terrorists and their associates. We are confident the courts will ultimately vindicate us.”

Soliman is accused of using a makeshift flamethrower and Molotov cocktails to burn people who gathered on the pedestrian mall in downtown Boulder for a weekly demonstration urging the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza. Witnesses said Soliman shouted, “Free Palestine” during the attack.

Karen Diamond, 82, died from injuries sustained in the attack. Police identified 29 who were injured.

El Gamal and her children were detained by federal immigration authorities two days after the attack. A federal judge in Denver ordered a deportation case against the family.

The family was living in the Colorado Springs area after arriving in the U.S. in August 2022 and was seeking political asylum. Federal officials said Soliman, who was born in Egypt and lived in Kuwait for 17 years, arrived on a tourist visa that expired in February 2023.

After being taken into custody by ICE in 2025, El Gamal said in a statement provided by her attorney that she and her children were “shocked” by Soliman’s actions and were cooperating with authorities.

Lee said on X that El Gamal and her children were denied medical care while in federal custody. He said El Gamal has reported a painful lump on her chest and medical scans have shown fluid around her heart.

Soliman faces 118 criminal charges in state court, including dozens of counts of attempted first-degree murder and assault, in addition to a federal hate-crime count.

Updated April 26 at 5 p.m. to add comment from Department of Homeland Security and detail about the El Gamal family’s recommended release from detention.

Denver Post reporter Katie Langford contributed to this report.

The couple sat in a vestibule inside the Aurora immigration detention facility on a Saturday in March, staring at each other through the glass barrier separating the incarcerated from the free. A dozen vestibules side by side contained the stories of immigrants and those who loved them.

Donovan, a 25-year-old U.S. citizen, and her husband Juan clutched wall-mounted telephones, transporting their weekly dispatches, daydreams and flirtations across the barrier. (The Denver Post agreed to identify Juan only by his first name so he could speak freely about his experience in the U.S. immigration system without fear of retaliation.)

The husband and wife traced shapes on their palms and tapped their fingertips together, the reverberations against the glass as close to holding hands as they’d come in more than a year.

“I need time with you very badly,” Juan said in Spanish, his eyes rarely straying from Donovan’s during the hour-long visit. “I can’t wait to hug you and kiss you.”

Juan has been held at U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement’s Aurora detention facility since being picked up on Feb. 5, 2025, during Denver’s most high-profile immigration raid since President Donald Trump returned to office — a day that altered the course of Juan and Donovan’s lives in unimaginable ways.

For months, The Denver Post followed this couple ensnared in Trump’s unprecedented mass-deportation push to show its impact on those targeted and their loved ones. While their experience shows the pitfalls of fighting against an unprecedented legal effort, this is also a story about the lengths a couple will go to fight for their love.

Juan has no criminal history. He came to the United States legally on a work visa in 2018 and overstayed that visa — a common situation that would not have warranted detention in the past, said Anya Lear, Juan’s immigration attorney.

“That’s something that wouldn’t happen in prior administrations,” Lear said. “They would not target people who just overstayed their visas. They would definitely not detain them. It’s very unprecedented.”

The vast majority of undocumented immigrants — more than 12 million in 2023 — entered the U.S. illegally or overstayed their visas, .

Since last year, Juan and Donovan have explored an array of legal avenues — including filing a habeas corpus petition — to fight for his freedom and a path to U.S. residency, even as the Trump administration’s overhaul of the immigration process has driven them to consider giving up entirely.

The couple has grown so jaded by their experience that they say Juan might agree to voluntarily deport himself to Mexico — an increasingly common outcome as immigrants across the nation are pushed to their limits by the federal government’s mass-deportation policies.

Juan is not currently under a deportation or removal order, Lear said, because the federal immigration court is awaiting the outcome of Donovan’s petition to establish their family relationship — the first step toward Juan being able to apply for a permanent resident card, or “green card.”

“He entered the country legally, we are in the green card process, we’re trying to do everything the ‘right way’ and it just simply doesn’t matter,” Donovan said.

Laura Lunn, director of advocacy and litigation for the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, said the idea that there is even a right way to immigrate to the United States is a myth in a complex, restrictive immigration system that does not provide court-appointed legal counsel to those entangled in it. The scant paths to U.S. citizenship that exist have become even fewer and ever-changing under this federal administration, she said.

ICE representatives did not respond to questions from The Post for this story.

The Department of Homeland Security, in its efforts to remove Juan from the U.S., has opposed his requests to be released on bond. Following an August hearing, an immigration judge issued a one-sentence order denying bond, stating that Juan “did not meet his burden to establish that he would not be a flight risk.”

‘I just want to be with her’

Donovan grew up in Missouri and considered herself the quintessential all-American girl. She was voted prom queen. She organized anti-gun protests at her school.

In 2020, Donovan moved to Colorado and became a special education teacher at a school for children with behavioral needs. She lives in southeast Denver.

She and Juan met through mutual friends toward the end of 2024.

She practiced Spanish with him and found his gentle, easygoing presence a balm to her anxiety and feisty disposition.

“He’s just so mellow,” Donovan said. “He’s literally wrongfully imprisoned right now, and he’s still so mellow.”

Donovan is talkative, bubbly and outgoing, while Juan is more of a listener. Juan is a self-professed workaholic — a roofer — who likes to stay active.

Juan took Donovan seriously, she said. When she shared her aspirations of going to law school, he asked how he could support her dreams.

“His responses are real and meaty,” Donovan said. “And I like that. Our entire relationship has been yapping, yapping, yapping.”

Each day felt like a new opportunity to learn more about each other, talk more, laugh more.

But after a few months of getting to know one another, Donovan was dumbfounded when the attentive, sweet guy she knew went radio silent.

Following worrisome days with no contact, Donovan received a call from a number she didn’t recognize. Via voicemail, Juan confirmed he wasn’t ignoring her. ICE agents had detained him while he was at a friend’s place in the Cedar Run Apartments in Denver.

Armed federal agents broke down the door while executing a warrant for someone else, and rounded up the people inside without properly determining whether Juan was a flight risk or a danger to the community, said Lear, his immigration attorney.

“I am just a middle-class white woman, so I naively didn’t think at the time there was a reality in which I was going to be affected very much by Trump’s insane policies, especially right off the bat,” Donovan said of the raid, which took place less than three weeks after the president’s inauguration. “Obviously, I was wrong.”

Juan was one of 4,750 people without legal status who were arrested by federal immigration authorities in Colorado during Trump’s first year back in office, new data shows, reflecting a near-quadrupling of the prior year’s arrest numbers.

The number of immigrants arrested who have criminal convictions has plummeted, the data shows, while deportations of those with no criminal history have skyrocketed.

The changes have made it difficult for even seasoned professionals to navigate, Lear said.

“It’s very hard to maneuver,” she said. “It’s very, very emotionally hard for me, even as their attorney. I feel like I’m trying to do everything I can, but I’m feeling like, ‘Am I missing something?’ I’m doubting myself. It’s wrong on so many fronts. He should not be detained, especially for this long. Ultimately, he’s been punished for the delays of the system.”

While Donovan and Juan’s attorney fight for his freedom, Juan languishes in the Aurora detention facility, spending his days picturing a future where he and his wife can wake up in the same house and eat breakfast together.

“I just want to be with her,” he said during a recent visit.

A difficult decision

Donovan didn’t know about Juan’s immigration status before he was detained. He came to Denver in 2018 on a work visa and was employed as a roofer. His work was his life, she said, along with his three young children from a previous relationship.

After receiving the voicemail about Juan’s detention, Donovan found herself in an awkward situation.

She had only been seeing this guy for a couple of months. Should she stick with him through his detention?

Donovan grew up visiting family in prison, so she knew the toll of watching a loved one endure incarceration and dealing with the legal ramifications it could have on a person.

But, man, he seemed like he could be the one.

“I knew that, were he to be deported, that wouldn’t even be a dealbreaker for me,” Donovan said. “I just really, really liked him, and he felt the same. I am hellbent and determined to not cave to this system, but also not (expletive) up my life completely in the process.”

Even before Donovan made up her mind on staying with Juan, she couldn’t stop visiting him in the detention facility. She had grown too accustomed to his company and their conversations.

From the beginning, she visited him every Saturday — a tradition she continues. When she’s not visiting, Donovan spends about $200 a month on an app that lets the couple text, call and video chat. They talk every day, she said.

It wasn’t long after Juan’s initial voicemail that Donovan decided she was all in on their relationship.

Both grew up Catholic, so the idea of an early marriage wasn’t taboo, Donovan said. Matrimony while detained seemed less than ideal, though. But as the months passed without an end in sight to Juan’s detention, the couple wondered whether they should just go for it.

“I’ve never been one to let the government tell me what to do,” Donovan said.

During a visitation last August, Juan asked Donovan to marry him.

What the location lacked in romance, it made up for in practicality — it was their only option.

The visitation room at the Aurora detention center is small. Visitors have to get to the facility early in the morning to sign in and are given a time later in the day to return. They must hand over anything on them and pass through a metal detector before their one-hour time slot.

Donovan isn’t fluent in Spanish, but she knows enough to be conversational. During a visit, She tried to ask Juan whether he thought ICE would give him an ankle bracelet if they let him out. She didn’t know the Spanish word for “ankle bracelet,” so she hoisted her foot up and pointed. Through giggles and miming, the couple eventually figured out what she meant.

“Sometimes we have to play charades,” Donovan said.

Visitors are separated from detainees by glass barriers. Families pile in with kids decked out in their Sunday best — bows in their hair, fluffy dresses, cowlicks gelled down. The adults settle into seats facing each other while children from different families run behind them, squealing, playing, crying. People talk about their legal cases, their loved ones, the conditions of the detention facility.

And sometimes they propose marriage.

“It was not a get-down-on-one-knee moment,” Donovan said.

In September, the two married. Donovan cried all day, she said. They weren’t happy tears.

No flowers. No first dance. The couple didn’t even get to see each other on their wedding day.

Donovan took off work to get all the paperwork signed in a process her attorney called “a nightmare.”

The couple needed to fill out a document to account for Juan’s absence when applying for their marriage license. An administrative error meant Donovan had to drive back and forth between the Adams County marriage license office and the Aurora ICE facility, waiting for their attorney, who was scheduled to have a face-to-face legal visit with Juan, to be able to bring him the papers to sign.

Dressed in an all-white skirt, top and heels, plus a ring she bought herself online, Donovan said she cried off all her makeup by the end of the hectic day.

“One day, we are actually going to get married the way we want to,” she said.

Denials, appeals and habeas corpus

Juan and Donovan’s emotions swing wildly between hope and despair, depending on the day.

On good days, the hope feels electric. The couple tries not to spook hope away with too big of a reality check. They allow themselves to fantasize about Juan being free. They’d eat tacos, drink beer and hold each other. They’d make tortillas by hand. They’d walk the dog together. They’d go mountain biking.

“We want to find ways we can have a stable life and do things we want to do, but reverse some of the damage we feel has been done to immigrants in this country,” she said.

But immigration judges have denied Juan bond multiple times, according to court documents. He appealed his most recent bond denial, in October, to the . That appeal remains pending, court documents show.

Lear, though, believes there’s not much hope with the Board of Immigration Appeals. Since the beginning of the year, she said, the board has issued 71 published decisions. Of those, 97% favored the federal government, she said.

During the entire four-year span of the Biden administration, the Board of Immigration Appeals issued 76 published decisions and 60% favored the federal government, Lear said.

Federal authorities have made it harder for people to even request bail in immigration cases, keeping immigrants without criminal records detained indefinitely and left to petition federal judges for habeas corpus, a way of legally challenging detention or incarceration.

Habeas petitions have become the predominant path for immigrants seeking release from detention. Colorado has seen an explosion of habeas cases as other avenues of relief have been cut off under the Trump administration.

While the array of legal challenges is a lot to manage, Donovan understands the privilege of even having legal representation.

Colorado has among the lowest rates in the nation of immigrants with legal representation, with about 85% of immigrants in the state representing themselves in court, according to a 

Detained immigrants who had legal representation were four times more likely to be released from detention, according to a

“We do know how lucky we are despite all of this,” Donovan said.

Proving their relationship is real

Donovan also has a pending I-130 petition, which allows a U.S. citizen to establish a “qualifying relationship” with an immigrant so they can seek a green card for permanent residency.

In December, interviewed Juan and Donovan separately as part of the I-130 application process. The federal agency is trying to determine whether their marriage is legitimate or fraudulent.

Violeta Chapin, an immigration law professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, said immigrants are often forced to prove their love in ways U.S. citizens don’t have to consider.

“You have to provide evidence of love because the immigration system has always been concerned about fraud,” Chapin said. “Certainly, under the Trump administration, there is a lot more scrutiny.”

Evidence of love can vary depending on the couple, Chapin said. Some couples might show they live together or purchased property or a car together. Younger couples who might have different relationship milestones might show they have a dog together or share a Netflix password, Chapin said.

Juan and Donovan’s relationship was interrupted by his detainment early on, so their evidence wasn’t as easy.

After waiting hours for her appointment to begin, Donovan stared at a gray wall while strangers asked her to prove her love for Juan was real, she said. She wished she had taken more photos together at the start of their relationship. She wished she could show them the sleepless nights. The crying outbursts. The number of times she drove to the detention facility just to be closer to him. She goes to therapy twice a week to deal with her declining mental health.

“During my interview, I felt like I was just floating above my body because I was sitting there thinking it’s so hopeless,” Donovan said. “None of these people give a (expletive) about my life or his… but I have to put stock into these people’s opinions of me. I didn’t know I was going to have to present evidence of my relationship. That’s not something you think about.”

As proof of their relationship, Lear submitted screenshots of Juan and Donovan’s communications over the past year.

Immigration judges have cited doubts about the validity of the couple’s marriage in denying Juan bond, Lear said.

“They are a real couple navigating a very, very difficult situation created by his detention and the uncertainty of his case,” she said. “The fact that they married while he was detained makes it very unique, but it does not make it fraudulent or wrong in any way. I don’t have any doubts about their relationship being sincere. I wouldn’t be working on the case if I thought it was some kind of scheme. She wouldn’t be fighting this hard for somebody who isn’t dear to her heart.”

The decision on Donovan’s I-130 petition is vital, Lear noted. Should Citizenship and Immigration Services approve it, Juan will be able to seek lawful permanent residency. But if it’s denied, she said, “the court would likely issue a removal order at that time.”

‘There is nothing’

When Donovan is having a particularly hard day, all she wants is to be near her husband. Sometimes she craves Juan’s presence so bad, she drives to the detention facility and sits outside the building.

Juan used to be confined to a different room in the facility that had a frosted window with a small patch scratched out at the bottom, just big enough for his eye to peek through. Donovan used to bring her longboard to the facility, call her husband and skate back and forth in front of the window, watching her husband’s eye follow her.

“I am so sick of not being able to be near him,” she said.

Despite his limited resources, Juan finds creative ways to show his affection for his wife. He crafted a tiny shoe ornament by weaving together scraps of ramen noodle wrappers from the commissary and fibers from his clothing. He slipped Donovan the trinket during one of his court hearings. She keeps it on her bedside table — a prized possession — and turns it over in her fingers to touch something her husband’s hands made.

One Monday evening in March, Donovan sat on the floor of her apartment after a long day making art with students. She spent the evening the way she does most nights — calling Juan over and over as they battled technology difficulties, poor service and the facility occasionally shutting off phone lines.

When the call finally went through, Donovan’s face lit up.

Throughout March, the couple was hopeful a judge would rule in their favor on their habeas petition, granting Juan release from the detention facility — though not settling the government’s deportation case against him.

During the phone call, they discussed the logistics of his potential discharge. What if it happened during the school day? How would they get a hold of each other?

The conversation drifted, as it often did, to the conditions in the detention center.

When it snowed, icy water cascaded from the ceiling, Juan said. The living quarters were freezing in cool weather and scorching in warm weather, he said. He told her how the meat they were fed was rotten to the point of making detainees sick and how the beans had rocks in them.

“It’s bad,” Juan said of his time in the detention center. “It’s just very bad. I don’t know the effect on my mental health. There is nothing to do here. There is nothing.”

Resignation and plans for self-deportation

To keep him going, Juan said he daydreams about his wife.

He loves the shape of Donovan’s mouth when she smiles, he said. He loves her independence. Her sense of humor keeps him laughing through hard times, he said.

“I love you because you’ve been through the good and bad,” he told her via text. “You’ve supported me in everything. I love your personality. I love your craziness and that’s why I want to be with you to build a beautiful future and have a stable life together.”

Juan knows his circumstances contribute to his wife’s worsening mental health, she said.

“I’m feeling desperate,” Donovan said. “I know Juan worries about me because of my mental health and doesn’t want to leave me alone, and then I feel guilty because I’m not the one detained. He’s the one really suffering.”

By mid-April, hope over Juan’s release had all but dwindled entirely.

Juan’s detention seemed endless. His odds of winning an appeal of his bond denial seemed low. Each morning, Juan wakes up in the detention center instead of beside his wife, his resolve crumbles that much further. Everybody he was originally arrested with has already been deported, he said.

The couple has reached their limit.

If nothing changes by the end of the month, they said they plan to request voluntary departure. Juan would be deported to Mexico. Donovan intends to follow him.

The couple and Lear said they know they’re operating within an immigration system intended to break them — to make the conditions so untenable that they choose to give up on the American dream altogether.

They’re willing to admit it worked.

Their dreamy conversations about hiking Colorado mountains together and which Denver neighborhoods they’d like to call home have now evolved into plans to move to Mexico.

“We try to just keep it positive,” Donovan said, sounding defeated. “We will be able to build some sort of life together. But obviously, we would have to take pay cuts. We would have to figure out how to maintain a relationship with his kids, figure out how to maintain relationships with our families, because we’re going to be in a different country than them. …

“We try not to stress right now. As long as we’re together. We just want to be together.”

Federal immigration agents re-arrested the family of the Boulder Pearl Street Mall firebombing suspect on Saturday, hours after they landed in Colorado following their court-ordered release from a Texas detention facility, the family’s attorney said.

A federal judge in Texas ordered the release of the El Gamal family this week, and the family landed in Colorado on Saturday morning, where they were again arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and put on a plane headed for Willow Run Airport in Detroit, attorney Eric Lee said in a statement.

A federal judge in Texas granted an on Saturday, Lee said in a post on X.

“The plane is landing in Michigan in an hour. It constitutionally cannot be allowed to take off,” Lee wrote just before 1 p.m.

It appeared the El Gamals’ deportation flight had turned around as of 3:30 p.m., Lee wrote on social media.

“We are told the family will be released, but we don’t trust a word they say,” Lee said on X.

A flight with the same tail number was scheduled to land at Denver International Airport on Saturday night, according to the flight tracking website FlightAware. The plane was still on the tarmac “in the Midwest” as of 6 p.m., Lee wrote on X.

ICE officials did not respond to a request for comment.

Hayam El Gamal, the wife of Boulder suspect Mohamed Soliman, and the couple’s five children were detained soon after Soliman was arrested on suspicion of carrying out a terror attack on the Pearl Street Mall on June 1, 2025.

Soliman filed for divorce in El Paso County in November, and the case is ongoing, court records show. El Gamal’s attorneys did not respond to a request for comment.

Soliman, 46, is accused of using a makeshift flamethrower and Molotov cocktails to burn people who had gathered at the pedestrian mall for a demonstration in support of releasing Israeli hostages in Gaza. Police initially identified 15 people who were injured in the attack and later identified an additional 14 victims, including those who were injured while fleeing and people who were close enough to be victims of attempted murder.

One of the first 15 injured, 82-year-old Karen Diamond, died on June 25, 2025, from her injuries.

Soliman is charged with dozens of felonies and misdemeanors in Boulder County District Court, including murder, attempted murder and assault. He also faces federal prosecution.

Although Trump administration officials initially pledged the El Gamal family would be deported quickly, a federal judge blocked their removal. They have been in custody at a Dilley, Texas, detention center for 10 months.

The family was living in the Colorado Springs area after arriving in the United States in August 2022 and was seeking political asylum. Federal officials said Soliman, who was born in Egypt and lived in Kuwait for 17 years, arrived on a tourist visa that expired in February 2023.

El Gamal and her children, ages 5, 5, 9, 16 and 18, were denied medical care while in federal custody, Lee said  this month, including for a growth on her chest and fluid around her heart.

“We are concerned that the systematic denial of medical attention may result in her death,” Lee wrote in an April 14 post on X. “Her children are extremely worried about their mother, who is now their only guardian.”

The family’s release comes days after a federal judge ordered them freed from the detention facility in Dilley, Texas, where they had been held for 10 months. Immigration authorities detained Hayam El Gamal, the wife of Mohamed Soliman, and the couple’s five children soon after Soliman was arrested in the June 1 terror attack in Boulder.

Soliman is accused of using a makeshift flamethrower and Molotov cocktails to burn people who’d gathered on the popular pedestrian mall for a weekly demonstration urging the release of Israeli hostages held in Gaza. Witnesses said Soliman shouted, “Free Palestine” during the attack, which is being prosecuted in both state and federal court. Karen Diamond, 82, died on June 25 from injuries sustained in the attack.

Soliman, who was born in Egypt and lived in Kuwait for 17 years, arrived in the U.S. in August 2022 on a tourist visa that expired in February 2023. He overstayed his visa and sought political asylum in September 2022. He and his family settled in the Colorado Springs area.

When Soliman’s family was detained two days after the attack, then-Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem vowed online  that the family would be deported “as early as tonight.”

Instead, they were held in custody until their release this week, according to the family’s attorney, Eric Lee. He did not immediately return a request for more information Friday, and it was not clear exactly when El Gamal and her children were freed.

Sixth Judicial District Attorney Sean Murray is one of just a few prosecutors across the country who have pursued criminal charges against federal agents for their actions during the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

On Tuesday, he filed misdemeanor assault and petty offense criminal mischief charges against U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officer Nicholas Rice.

Murray told The Denver Post on Thursday that he did not consider that broader political landscape when he filed the case.

“Affirmatively no,” he said. “I tried to set that aside. I don’t think it is relevant to that decision-making process.”

He was aware of the political implications, he added, and he did consider federal statutes and federal use-of-force guidelines as he considered the case. Politics, though, didn’t factor into the decision-making, he said.

“At the end of the day, it shouldn’t matter, as long as there is an analysis about supremacy clause immunity,” he said, referencing the broad legal protections federal agents have when acting in the course of their official duties.

“It is a slightly different posture, procedurally, than a typical case when someone can’t claim that,” he said. “So there is an added layer of analysis to the charging decision in that regard. But I think it����ap incumbent upon state and local prosecutors to enforce the criminal code.”

Murray emphasized that all defendants are considered innocent unless and until proven guilty, and declined to discuss the specifics of the case against Rice.

The began investigating the case in October at the request of Durango police Chief Brice Current in the wake of a widely-circulated video that showed a masked federal officer snatch protester Franci Stagi’s phone, drag her across a street and throw her to the ground during an at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Durango.

Stagi, a retired hypnotherapist, said she reached for the officer’s shoulder to get his attention after she lost her phone. She said he put her in a chokehold and threw her down an embankment next to the street. She said she still experiences pain in her arm while doing everyday activities, like putting on her jacket.

“It did open my eyes to how quickly I can be under someone else’s control, and it����ap frightening,” said Stagi, whose legal name is Anne Francesca Stagi.

The Justice Department has taken a hard line against state efforts to arrest or prosecute federal agents, citing the broad legal protections. Late last year, U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said arrests of federal officers performing their duties would be “illegal and futile,” citing the Constitution’s supremacy clause and federal law.

Legal experts say those protections are significant but not absolute and that the supremacy clause does not provide blanket immunity.

In a statement on the Colorado charges, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said states do not have the authority to investigate such cases.

“Federal officers acting in the course of their duties can only be investigated by other Federal agencies,” the statement read.

The department said it was still investigating what happened in the incident.

Murray said Thursday he expects Rice’s case to move to federal court for the debate on federal immunity. He added he considered that potential defense as he decided whether to bring charges.

Stagi said Wednesday she was disappointed Rice was charged with less serious crimes. The assault charge, a misdemeanor, carries a maximum sentence of just under a year in jail. But she hopes the prosecution sends a message that immigration officers can’t tackle people indiscriminately and use excessive force.

Across the country, at least two other federal agents have been charged with crimes amid the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement effort.

Earlier this month, a federal immigration agent was charged with two counts of second-degree assault by a county prosecutor in Minnesota amid investigations into the actions of several officers during the immigration crackdown in the Minneapolis area.

ICE officer Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr. is accused of pointing his gun at occupants of a car after pulling alongside them on a Minneapolis-area highway. Investigators say Morgan said he feared for his safety after the vehicle swerved in front of him.

Outside Chicago, an off-duty ICE agent has been charged with misdemeanor battery for throwing to the ground a 68-year-old protester who was filming him at a gas station in December. The Homeland Security Department says the agent acted in self-defense.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

A Colorado prosecutor said Wednesday that the officer has been charged with third-degree assault and criminal mischief following an investigation into the treatment of a protester in October.

U.S. border protection officer charged with assault after southern Colorado ICE protest

Multiple videos show a masked federal agent seizing a 57-year-old woman, who says she was put in a chokehold, during the protest in Durango.

Colorado is among several states to prohibit or severely limit the use of chokeholds and neck restraints by police officers. But immunity provisions under the U.S. Constitution and federal law limit the reach of local authorities in prosecuting federal agents.

Here’s what to know:

Investigations underway in Minnesota and Chicago

The Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics have spurred an array of investigations by state and local authorities.

Earlier this month, a federal with two counts of second-degree assault by a county prosecutor in Minnesota amid investigations into the actions of several officers during the immigration crackdown .

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer Gregory Donnell Morgan Jr. is accused of pointing his gun at occupants of a car after pulling alongside them on a Minneapolis-area highway. Investigators say Morgan said he feared for his safety after the vehicle swerved in front of him.

Minnesota officials also have for investigations into three shootings during the crackdown, including those that resulted in the deaths of and .

Outside Chicago, an off-duty ICE agent has been charged with misdemeanor battery for throwing to the ground a 68-year-old protester who was filming him at a gas station in December. The Homeland Security Department that oversees ICE says the agent acted in self-defense.

In California, the shooting death of 43-year-old Keith Porter by an off-duty ICE agent on New Year’s Eve has prompted protests and calls for an independent investigation.

Federal officers and the supremacy clause

Federal law enforcement officers have broad legal protections when acting in the course of their official duties, and the Justice Department has taken a hard line against state efforts to arrest or prosecute federal agents.

Late last year, U.S. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said arrests of federal officers performing their duties would be “illegal and futile,” citing the Constitution’s supremacy clause and federal law.

Legal experts say those protections are significant but not absolute and that the supremacy clause does not provide blanket immunity.

In a statement on the Colorado charges, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, which includes U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said states do not have the authority to investigate such cases.

“Federal officers acting in the course of their duties can only be investigated by other Federal agencies,” the statement said.

Conduct by ICE officers is under additional scrutiny amid a rapid hiring spree and .

Flashpoint in Colorado mountain town

The altercation in Colorado arose from demonstrations over the detention on Oct. 27 of three Colombian asylum-seekers -- a man and two children — while they were on their way to school in the morning. In late October, protesters gathered outside an ICE facility in Durango, a college town and destination for outdoor recreation in the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado.

Multiple videos show a masked federal agent placing Franci Stagi in what she described as a chokehold. Chokeholds have been at the center of public discourse and state legislative initiatives about what constitutes an unreasonable use of force since died in New York in 2014 after he was put in a chokehold by a police officer.

Stagi, a retired hypnotherapist, said she reached for the agent����ap shoulder to get his attention and that he then grabbed her by the hair, put her neck in the crook of his arm and carried her across the street by her head before throwing her down an embankment next to the street.

Court documents allege that Customs and Border Protection officer Nicholas Rice committed third-degree assault by causing bodily injury to Stagi, but the documents don’t describe how she was injured or make mention of a chokehold. Court documents didn’t list any attorney as representing the officer.

A spokesperson for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which launched its own investigation, didn’t immediately respond to questions about the charges.

Stagi says she’s disappointed Rice was charged with less serious crimes but hopes the prosecution sends a message that immigration officers can’t tackle people indiscriminately and use excessive force.

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — The wife of a U.S. Army sergeant was being held Tuesday at an immigration detention facility in El Paso, Texas, amid signs that the Trump administration is toward immigrant family members of military personnel and veterans.

Jose Serrano, an active duty soldier who served three tours in Afghanistan, said immigration agents arrested his wife April 14 as they attended an appointment with immigration services to take steps toward her permanent residency.

“A person opened the door, escorted us through the hallway, and at the end of the hallway, my wife got arrested,” Serrano said. “Arrested without any order, any warrant … They took away my wife. They don’t tell me anything.”

Since then, El Salvador native Deisy Rivera Ortega has challenged her detention in U.S. District Court and requested an order to block her deportation to Mexico — where she does not have ties and visits by active duty U.S. troops are restricted.

Attorney Matthew James Kozik said Rivera Ortega held a valid work permit and was previously granted a withholding of removal to El Salvador.

The Department of Homeland Security said in an email that Rivera Ortega entered the U.S. illegally in 2016 and that a judge issued a final order of removal in December 2019.

“Work authorization does not confer any legal status to be in the country. Rivera-Ortega remains in ICE custody pending removal,” the agency said. The agency did not address whether Rivera Ortega might be deported to Mexico.

Rivera Ortega was being held at El Paso Service Processing Center, where Serrano says he was able to visit Sunday and talk to his wife through a plastic pane.

She applied for consideration with her husband under the “parole in place” policy that previously provided a possibly expedited pathway to permanent residency for spouses of service members.

But last April, DHS eliminated a that considered military service of an immediate family member to be a “significant mitigating factor” in deciding whether or not to pursue immigration enforcement. The administration’s states that “military service alone does not exempt aliens from the consequences of violating U.S. immigration laws.”