Colorado chose Egor Shilov with the No. 43 pick in the second round Saturday, and followed up with Beckett Hamilton at choice No. 74 in the third round. The Avs selected nine players in total — tied for the most in any draft by the club since it switched a seven-round format in 2005.

Shilov, listed at 6-foot-1 and 180 pounds, had 32 goals and 82 points in 63 games for the Victoriaville Tigres of the QMJHL this past season. He finished seventh in the QMJHL in scoring, but first among rookies. He is expected to play for Victoriaville next season and then join Penn State for the 2027-28 campaign.

“We were really high on him — our staff, our analytics department, the scouting staff through and through was was high on him,” Avs scouting director Nick Pryor said. “It’s a high-talent player. We see him as a guy with a high offensive upside and a lot of skill, dynamic skill, playmaking.”

Hailing from Tyumen, Russia, Shilov has also played for the Long Island Gulls in the AYHL and Green Bay Gamblers in the USHL prior to joining Victoriaville. Shilov was previously committed to Boston University, but flipped to Penn State in May.

The consensus from several draft experts on Shilov is he’s a dynamic offensive prospect, but there are questions about his defensive commitment and compete level.

Hamilton, listed at 5-foot-11 and 173 pounds, is in some ways the opposite type of prospect compared to Shilov. He had 24 goals and 62 points in 67 games for Red Deer, plus three goals in five games for Canada at the U-18 world championships.

He’s expected to stay with Red Deer next season, and hasn’t committed to an NCAA program for the future. Hamilton earned praise from multiple draft experts for his play away from the puck and his straightforward offensive attack.

“Beckett’s a high-motor, high-energy speed player, and that’s probably the first thing that drew us to him,” Pryor said. “But then he’s got some skill to go with it, and goal scoring. We like the pace of play that he plays at, and the drive that he plays with.

“Egor is more cerebral, really good on the power play. He can pick it apart. He’s good from the half-wall on the power play. Beckett’s north-south game is what was really attractive for us, but he does have skill and a goal-scoring touch to go with it as well.”

Both Shilov and Hamilton have played center for their CHL teams and gained some penalty-killing experience. The Avs have a very thin pipeline, and these two players immediately slot in among the top five or six prospects in the organization.

Colorado’s pipeline particularly thin at center. The Avs have a few prospects who can play center, like TJ Hughes and Gavin Brindley with the Eagles during the Calder Cup Playoffs and Jake Fisher at the University of Denver, but whether or not any of them can stick in the middle at the NHL is certainly in question.

Avs general manager Joe Sakic traded for both of these draft picks in recent days. The No. 43 selection arrived Thursday from Columbus in the Valeri Nichushkin trade, while No. 74 came from Nashville in the Ross Colton deal.

Colorado added four defensemen, a wing and two goaltenders with its remaining picks.

FOOTNOTES: The Avs made a player-for-player trade during the draft, sending Ivan Ivan to the Boston Bruins for Fabian Lysell, a 23-year-old forward. Lysell, who played 12 NHL games two years ago, is a 5-foot-11, 186-pound wing and was a first-round pick in 2021. … Two more University of Denver incoming freshmen were drafted Saturday — defenseman Ben MacBaeth was the No. 64 pick by the New York Rangers and Mikey Berchild was the 105th selection by the Carolina Hurricanes. All eight members of DU’s incoming recruiting class are now NHL draft picks.

Rudolph, who will be a freshman at the University of Denver next season, was the No. 4 pick in the 2026 NHL draft. Even better, he was selected by the Buffalo Sabres at KeyBank Arena in downtown Buffalo.

“It’s an incredible feeling,” Rudolph told reporters after being drafted. “To be selected by Buffalo in Buffalo, it means a lot. Just hearing the applause was a really cool moment.”

He also made history for the Pioneers in multiple ways. Rudolph is now the highest draft selection in DU program history. He and Ryan Lin, who went with the No. 21 pick to the San Jose Sharks, are now the first pair of first-round picks to be on the DU roster at the same time.

Rudolph, a 6-foot-2 defenseman, had 28 goals and 78 points in 68 games for Prince Albert in the WHL this past season. He also had nine goals and 27 points in 19 playoff games.

Lin, a 5-foot-11 defenseman, had 14 goals and 57 points in 53 games for Vancouver in the WHL. He’s also played for Canada at the U-18 world championships in each of the past two years.

Rudolph and Lin are part of the most anticipated recruiting class in Pios program history. The defending champions lost four defensemen from their title-winning team, but Rudolph, Lin, 2025 second-round pick Blake Fiddler and Ben MacBeath, a projected second-round choice in this draft will arrive to replace them this fall.

The landscape of college hockey has changed dramatically in recent years. The 2026-27 season will be the second year in which players from the CHL — a combination of Canada’s three top major junior leagues — will be eligible to play NCAA hockey. This Pios freshman class has seven CHL players (six from the WHL, one from the OHL) plus center Mikey Berchild, who spent the past two years at the USA Hockey National Team Development Program.

“I think it����ap exciting for our fans. There’s a notoriety that comes with (multiple first-round picks),” DU coach David Carle told The Denver Post earlier this week. “I think our challenge is not change at all who we are or the people we’re bringing in. That����ap what we’re most excited about. This has more to do with the CHL rule change than anything else.”

Denver has built itself into a college hockey powerhouse without the benefit of multiple first-round picks. The Pios have only had five in program history before this. There’s been plenty of future NHL talent, but not at the same levels of the sport����ap other traditional powers.

“They’re not picking Denver because we’re the fastest road to the NHL, or we’re offering the most money or we have the shiniest stuff,” Carle said. “They’re coming here because they want to be part of something bigger than themselves and they want to add to what we’ve already been able to do on this historic run.”

The Pioneers — defending NCAA champions, winners of a record 11 titles, including three of the past five — have never had multiple first-round NHL Draft picks in the program at the same time. That is expected to change Friday, when incoming freshmen Daxon Rudolph and Ryan Lin will hear their names called at KeyBank Arena in Buffalo during the opening round of this year’s draft.

Rudolph and Lin are the headliners from the most anticipated recruiting class in program history. Two other incoming Pios are expected to be drafted Saturday — defenseman Ben MacBeath is projected to be a second-round selection, while center Mikey Berchild should go in the middle rounds. The other four guys in the eight-member class are already NHL draft picks, including Blake Fiddler, the No. 36 selection in the 2025 draft.

“I think it’s exciting for our fans. There’s a notoriety that comes with (multiple first-round picks),” DU coach David Carle told The Denver Post. “I think our challenge is not change at all who we are or the people we’re bringing in. That’s what we’re most excited about. This has more to do with the CHL rule change than anything else.”

Tapping the CHL pipeline

The landscape of college hockey has changed dramatically in recent years. The 2026-27 season will be the second year in which players from the CHL — a combination of Canada’s three top major junior leagues — will be eligible to play NCAA hockey. This Pios freshman class has seven CHL players (six from the WHL, one from the OHL) plus Berchild, who spent the past two years at the USA Hockey National Team Development Program.

Gavin McKenna, expected to be the No. 1 pick Friday night, spent this past season at Penn State after previously playing in the WHL. The Pios had six former CHL players in their 10-person freshman class last season, including postseason star goalie Johnny Hicks.

Recruiting players from the CHL has changed the process for college programs — not just the who but the when. Before CHL eligibility, amateur players would often commit two or three years before arriving on campus. Now, college hockey recruiting looks a bit more like football and basketball, with key prospects making their decisions much later in the process.

“Tavis did a remarkable job with this class. It’s not easy. At the start of the year, Lin, Rudolph and Fiddler — none of them were committed,” Carle said of Tavis MacMillan, who was promoted to general manager/assistant coach Wednesday. “Tavis, to his credit, just really built relationships with the players and their representatives throughout the year. We’re not surprised with the work Tavis was able to do with this group, but it’s a remarkable group that adds what is already a great group of returners.”

Randolph, Lin and MacBeath are all part of a dynamite crop of WHL players in the 2026 draft class. McKenna and North Dakota’s Keaton Verhoeff are projected top-10 picks with WHL roots, while Rudolph, Lin, Carson Caels (a NoDak signee) and JP Hurlbert (a Michigan signee) could all end up in the top 15-20 selections.

They will arrive at DU at a critical time. Hobey Baker finalist Eric Pohlkamp and senior captain Kent Anderson were expected to turn pro, but sophomore Garrett Brown and junior Boston Buckberger joined them after the title run. That’s the entire right side of the defense corps plus the No. 1 guy on the left side.

Insert righties Randolph, Lin and Fiddler, plus a lefty in MacBeath, to remake a defense corps that still includes Colorado Avalanche draft pick Tory Pitner, former WHL captain Eric Jamieson and senior Cale Ashcraft.

Changing landscape of college hockey

Denver has built itself into a college hockey powerhouse without the benefit of multiple first-round picks. The Pios have only had five in program history before this. There’s been plenty of future NHL talent, but not at the same levels of the sport’s other traditional powers.

Can the Pios still win big with a new level of player steadily finding its way to Magness Arena?

“I think that’s a fair speculation, and time will tell,” Carle said. “I’m very confident in our staff’s ability, our program’s ability, our culture’s ability to do it. … Great players want to be coached, want to be in environments where they are held accountable and they want to win. We’re not changing at all how we’re operating. Our intent is to win on the ice, in the weight room, in the classroom and develop these players as people first while helping them achieve their dreams of winning a national championship.

“They’re not picking Denver because we’re the fastest road to the NHL, or we’re offering the most money or we have the shiniest stuff. They’re coming here because they want to be part of something bigger than themselves and they want to add to what we’ve already been able to do on this historic run.”

The new talent pool isn’t the only major change. This will be the second year of revenue sharing for college athletes.

Carle said the Pios did not offer any revenue-sharing money last season, opting to wait and plot out best practices for allocating the resources. DU players have earned compensation through Name, Image and Likeness contracts in recent seasons, but that money did not come through the university.

The Pioneers are extending revenue-sharing money to their players this coming season, and not just the incoming freshmen. Retaining current roster members has become a critical part of the modern recruiting process, given the transfer portal and financial means for other schools to poach players.

“I think just the best developmental path for me,” Rudolph told reporters in Buffalo ahead of the NHL draft about choosing the Pios and college hockey. “I think my time in the WHL was so much fun and really helped my game progress. Moving on to Denver next year will help me adjust to the NHL when that time comes.

“I think there’s a few reasons (for Denver). Obviously the coaching staff is a big one. Who I’m going to be around — there’s lots of my buddies there and western Canadians.”

Not only are the Pios defending champs with an exciting recruiting class, but the 2026-27 schedule is also one of the most anticipated in program history. After a trip to Alaska-Anchorage, the first three home weekends of the season are all bangers.

DU will welcome the NTDP U-18 team to Magness Arena, followed by Michigan and then Boston College. It’s the Wolverines’ first trip to Denver since 1981. The Pios beat the Wolverines in an instant classic at the 2025 Frozen Four and will make a return visit to Yost Arena next season.

Carle said the Pios are talking with the Wolverines about scheduling future games. They’re also working on future series with blue bloods like Minnesota and Boston University.

“We remain very hungry to continue to add to what we’re doing,” Carle said. “There is zero interest to take any steps backwards. It is pedal to the floor to capitalize on our success and to continue to build our brand and our momentum. I mean … certainly the five-year run, we feel like we’re in this golden age of Denver hockey and we want to capitalize on it to its full extent.”

Or is it Nashville Avalanche?

Either way, Joe Sakic and Chris MacFarland continue to do business together. The Colorado Avalanche sent Jack Drury, Chase Bradley and a third-round pick in 2029 to the Nashville Predators on Wednesday for Zachary L’Heureux and Fedor Svechkov.

Svechkov was also a first-round pick in 2021. Listed at 6-feet and 187 pounds, Svechkov had four goals and 17 points in 70 games for the Predators this past season. Both players are currently 23 years old and have spent time in the NHL in each of the past two seasons.

L’Heureux had four goals and an assist in 25 games for the Predators this past season. He was a first-round pick in 2021. Listed at 5-foot-11 and 197 pounds, he has a history of playing a physical brand of hockey — and also going beyond the boundaries of legality. He’s been suspended once in two years in the NHL, twice in the AHL, and nine times during his junior career in the QMJHL, for a total of 34 games.

He was once suspended for 10 games in the QMJHL for assaulting a fan with his stick. His NHL suspension came in January 2025 for slew-footing Minnesota defenseman Jared Spurgeon. L’Heureux missed some time early in this past season with injury and also played 30 games for the Milwaukee Admirals.

L’Heureux was the No. 27 pick in that draft — one spot before the Avalanche selected Oskar Olausson. Svechkov went six picks before L’Heureux. Both players mostly played in fourth-line roles for the Predators.

Both players have two years remaining on their current contracts. Svechkov’s cap hit for this coming season and next is $1.25 million. L’Heureux will cost $875,000 against the cap both years. Both players will still be restricted free agents at the end of these deals.

L’Heureux was 10th among Nashville forwards in average ice time per game (13:23) while Svechkov was 13th at 12:05. L’Heureux was a regular on the penalty kill when he was available this season, while Svechkov was not.

Drury, 26, is a restricted free agent in a week. He spent most of his time with the Avs as the No. 4 center. He was a favorite of coach Jared Bednar for his defensive work, but didn’t show enough offensive impact while playing in the middle of the third line to stick there.

The Avs had a little less than $7 million in cap space before this trade, and still need to sign somewhere between two and four defensemen to fill out that part of the depth chart. Given the contracts that fellow depth centers Michael McCarron and Jason Dickinson signed in recent days, it’s certainly plausible that Drury will sign with Nashville for more than what Colorado can afford to pay its No. 4 center — even if he is one of the very best in the league at that role.

This is the second trade between the two clubs since MacFarland left Denver to be the president and general manager of the Predators earlier this month. Sakic and the Avs also sent Ross Colton and minor-league goaltender Isak Posch to Nashville for a pair of third-round picks and former University of Denver goalie Magnus Chrona, who is a pending unrestricted free agent and has already signed a deal with a Swedish club for next season.

Now that the Avs have traded Colton and Drury to the Predators, there are two openings in the lineup up front. Svechkov and L’Heureux could fill those roles, though they would need to beat out Gavin Brindley, Taylor Makar and TJ Hughes.

Bradley, 24, signed with the Avs as a college free agent in July 2024 after three years at the University of Connecticut. He played two games for the Avs in 2024-25, but has mostly been a solid player for the Colorado Eagles in the AHL.

Now he’s traded for him.

Joe Sakic and the Colorado Avalanche sent Colton to the Nashville Predators on Tuesday, where he will reunite with the club’s former general manager. The Avs also sent along minor-league goaltender Isak Posch.

The return is two third-round draft picks, plus former University of Denver goaltender Magnus Chrona.

Moving Colton frees up $4 million of cap space for the 2026-27 season for the Avalanche. They now have nearly $7 million in space available, .

That could allow Colorado to sign No. 4 center Jack Drury, who is a restricted free agent, or UFA defenseman Brett Kulak, plus make some depth additions to fill out the roster. Sakic may still need to move another forward if he wants to keep Drury and Kulak, or invest more resources into the defense corps.

The draft picks coming to Colorado are Nashville’s 2026 third-round selection, which is No. 74 overall, and the Avs’ 2027 third, which was originally traded to the Predators for Juuso Parssinen during the 2024-25 campaign.

This trade is similar to the one MacFarland made for the Avs last summer, sending Miles Wood and Charlie Coyle to the Columbus Blue Jackets for Gavin Brindley and two picks. That deal opened more than $7 million in cap flexibility for the Avs and helped further bolster a club that went on to win the Presidents’ Trophy and finish with a franchise-record 121 points, but fell short of its ultimate goal with a stunning Western Conference Final defeat to the Vegas Golden Knights.

Colton is entering the final season of a four-year, $16 million contract he signed with the Avs in July 2023. His three years with Colorado were a bit of a mixed bag.

His production decreased each of the three years, with nine goals and 24 points in 73 games this past season. Colton had multiple stretches over the past couple of seasons where he went through a prolonged scoring drought, even though his two-way play was solid throughout much of that time.

Colton began the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs as the Avs’ 13th forward. He was a healthy scratch for the first two games against the Los Angeles Kings, but had two goals and five points in the Avs’ final 11 playoff contests.

It is possible that Nashville will give Colton another chance to play center. He started in the middle for the Avalanche in 2023-24, before moving to the wing after some trade additions. Colton also made a brief appearance back as the center of the third line this past season, but Colorado coach Jared Bednar clearly preferred him on the wing.

Chrona won a national championship with the Pioneers in 2022. He played nine games for the San Jose Sharks in 2023-24 near the end of the season, but has mostly been an AHL netminder the past three seasons.

The 25-year-old goalie was set to be an unrestricted free agent July 1, but has already agreed to a two-year contract with Brynäs in the Swedish Elite League.

Posch, 24, went 15-7-8 with an .891 save percentage for the Colorado Eagles in the AHL this season as the No. 1B/backup to Trent Miner. Moving Posch does provide a bit of clarity for Colorado’s depth chart in net.

The Avs will have top prospect Ilya Nabokov and new signing Nikita Novosyolov to compete with Miner for the No. 3 spot on the depth chart behind Mackenzie Blackwood and Scott Wedgewood.

Whatever level of patience and stability Joe Sakic truly believes the Colorado Avalanche need this offseason, he’s got some work to do with the defense corps.

There could be some interesting decisions with the forwards, while the goaltending is the most likely group to look exactly the same on opening night as it does today. The blue line could generate a bunch of headlines in the next few weeks, though.

“There’s always changes, but we have the core guys here,” Sakic said at his year-end press conference. “We have a nucleus. We’re a deep team. We feel we’re strong in all the positions. Obviously, we have some UFAs that we’re going to try and sign to keep the group together, but it’s a great group.

“They care about each other. They want to win. They’re very competitive. They’re disappointed, but their expectations are to try and come back and try and compete and win a Stanley Cup.”

Two of the team’s three key free agents are part of the defense corps, and there are depth concerns as well.

What just happened

When fully healthy, the Avs defense corps was arguably the league’s best in 2025-26. Cale Makar finished second in the Norris Trophy voting despite his lowest per-game offensive output since 2020-21. The start of Devon Toews’ year wasn’t at his best, but he had a strong finish after the Olympic break and into the postseason.

Sam Malinski was one of the breakout players of the entire NHL, earned a new contract and was playing like a No. 3 defenseman at his peak. He wasn’t near the new standard he set in the Western Conference Final, and was widely believed to be playing through a compromising injury after missing two games in the second round.

Josh Manson missed four games in the playoffs, but otherwise filled his role as the club’s most physical defenseman while collecting the second-most points of his career. Brent Burns played every game like always, was a hit in the dressing room and showed he can still play even past his 41st birthday.

The addition of Brett Kulak as a steady, defense-first guy at the trade deadline was a success, even if the price tag on the day of the trade seemed a bit steep.

Former GM Chris MacFarland admitted that he tried to add three defensemen ahead of the deadline, not just Kulak and Nick Blankenburg — a sign that Colorado knew the depth of its defense during a long playoff run could be an issue. Blankenburg played to mixed results as the No. 7 guy, and Jack Ahcan ended up getting three of the eight games available because of injuries to the top six.

What����ap next

The top priority is a new contract for Makar, who can be a UFA in July 2027. He’s eligible to sign July 1, and Sakic made it clear the Avs expect to get a deal done this summer.

But there are a lot of moves to make to build out the defense corps for next season as well. Makar, Toews, Malinski and Manson are a great foundation to build from, but the next four guys — Kulak, Burns, Blankenburg and Ahcan — are all unrestricted free agents.

The Avs are currently short on salary cap space, so one or more of the forwards could be on the move to help allocate more resources to the blue line.

Does Burns want to keep playing and do the Avs want another year with him? He can break the NHL’s ironman record next year if he continues. A similar deal to this past year — $1 million in salary with bonuses makes sense, whether that is in Denver or elsewhere.

What could Kulak get on the open market? Hint: Probably a lot. There is a strong argument that Kulak would be the No. 1 left-handed defenseman on the market, and one of the 3-5 best overall.

That leads to the next big question: Can the Avs find more balance after entering the 2026 playoffs with five righties in their top seven?

Lining up Manson and Malinski (or flip them) down the right side behind Makar is excellent, particularly if Malinski is able to retain or even build on the gains he made this past season. But the Avs need to fill out the LHD side of the depth chart. Manson and Burns worked together, but Colorado needs more lefties.

Trading Samuel Girard for a guy in the last year of his contract (Kulak) created this conundrum, but if the Avs can’t sign Kulak, they’ll be looking for a similar-style player to replace him. In an ideal world, Sakic can land a young-ish left-handed defenseman who is capable of playing on the second pairing now and possibly be the heir to Toews as the club’s No. 2 guy as he ages.

Will the Avs be able to count on any help from the Eagles? There are a couple of guys with potential to be depth options for them next season, beyond just bringing Ahcan and/or Blankenburg back.

The Avs are clearly intrigued by Alex Gagne, a 6-foot-5 lefty who was a college free agent from New Hampshire and became a solid contributor for the Eagles in his first pro season. He’ll be 24 in August. Then there is University of Denver alum Sean Behrens, who missed all of two years ago with a knee injury and just completed his first healthy pro campaign.

It’s hard to see Colorado wanting to break camp with one of those guys in the lineup, but maybe one of them can work his way up the depth chart to the No. 6 or 7 spot over the course of next season. Behrens’ size will work against him, but his smarts could help him find a depth role.

It could take some creativity, but the Avs will likely sign or trade for at least three defensemen, if not more, between now and training camp. And that’s not counting a potential mega-deal for Makar, which will help shape the salary cap puzzle for 2027-28 and beyond.

Future depth chart

^ Unrestricted free agent on July 1; * UFA in 2027; + Restricted free agent in 2027

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.”

Aaron Schneider, a DU professor and co-president of the campus’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, said he consulted with the 140-member organization after the university announced plans Tuesday to close departments and merge schools.

He said faculty members expressed feeling unheard and misrepresented.

“They have undertaken major restructuring and cuts done without meaningful faculty input and basic principles of shared governance,” Schneider said. “After a year of meetings, reports, studies, in which faculty came to the table in good faith, the chancellor, provost and Board of Trustees made decisions often different from what the faculty had advised.”

DU spokesperson Jon Stone said in a statement that dozens of faculty members engaged in the committees that prepared restructuring recommendations and hundreds took part in listening sessions over the last year. He noted that DU’s “is the official and appropriate faculty elected body to speak on behalf of the university’s faculty.”

“While we understand that not everyone might agree with the decisions announced, there was extensive work completed with our faculty and staff community that led to these outcomes,” Stone said. “Further, these decisions, as clearly outlined in the announcement materials, are about addressing market challenges, leaning into the university’s strengths, advancing an outstanding student experience, and ensuring DU’s long-term success.”

On Tuesday, DU administrators announced they will close the and departments, and that faculty within three others — ; ; and — had voted to close their departments.

The university is also merging the the with the . And the will join with the and the

The restructuring, DU officials said, will aid in interdisciplinary learning and breaking down campus siloes.

“Department closures, that kind of thing that impacts our ability to retain faculty and staff, is heartbreaking,” Sarah Watamura, DU Faculty Senate president, told The Denver Post in an interview Tuesday as the campus announced the changes. “And yet, I think we have to adjust like schools all over the country to the demands that we’re facing.”

DU leaders said the closures will eliminate an unspecified number of jobs. The university acknowledged this week that about 9% of its faculty “voluntarily chose to conclude their service” through buyouts, part of cost-cutting efforts to eliminate a $20 million to $30 million budget shortfall.

Senior administrators said DU will operate under a balanced budget in the fiscal year that begins July 1.

Schneider, co-president of DU’s AAUP chapter, noted that faculty voted “no confidence” in Chancellor Jeremy Haefner last year.

“A year later, and major cuts and restructuring occurred without any reasonable academic vision for the university, by a leader who has already shown he has no confidence from the people who study and work at the university,” Schneider said. “The only vision they appear to have is a financial one — expand the endowment and properties of the university at any cost.”

Schneider also noted DU bought the Cable Center building for $20 million “in the midst of a budget crisis.” University officials announced the deal at the beginning of this year, saying they were purchasing the building on Buchtel Boulevard at the north end of DU’s main campus to become a welcome center for prospective students and visitors, as well as an event and rental space.

“They put $20 million toward a depreciating asset in a deficit budget year that needs substantive remodeling to meet its stated goal of being the ‘face’ of the university for prospective students,” Schneider said.

Furthermore, he said, DU has frozen faculty and staff wages for the next two years as the school on the salaries of the chancellor and senior administration. Full-time staff who “support the student experience” are taking on second and third jobs to keep up with the cost of living, he said.

“Still, I’m hopeful,” Schneider said. “We have an amazing faculty dedicated to students, knowledge and the civic role of higher ed. We have frontline staff who are dedicated to students and choose to work at a university because they love higher ed. We have curious and smart students who want to learn. Despite the mismanagement of the upper administration and the Board of Trustees, we will continue to be a first-rate university.”

DU leaders acknowledged that the changes will eliminate an unspecified number of jobs, but Provost Elizabeth Loboa said the realignment is “not really a part of” addressing the $20 million to $30 million budget shortfall the school had announced earlier this spring.

Officials at the private university declined to say how much money the restructuring will save. They said DU will operate under a balanced budget in the fiscal year that begins July 1.

“The restructuring is really for the future to make sure we’re agile and nimble to match the size we are and match student demand,” DU Chancellor Jeremy Haefner said in a Tuesday morning interview with The Denver Post. “We’re very excited about this.”

DU’s moves come as universities across the country face financial woes amid falling enrollment, the Trump administration’s funding cuts and an increasing scrutiny of the value of higher education. The budget deficit DU announced in March was blamed, in part, on reductions in the number of international students and the overall campus population.

DU was able to balance its budget for the 2027 fiscal year by adjusting to lower enrollment levels, reducing expenses and leaving vacant jobs open or eliminating them, spokesman Jon Stone said. About 9% of DU’s faculty “voluntarily chose to conclude their service” through buyouts.

The university announced Tuesday that it will eliminate the within the and the within the . Both will close this year, Haefner said.

The religious studies department is home to eight faculty members, said Sahara Byrne, dean of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.

Fifteen faculty members made up the electrical and computer engineering department at the start of the year, but many have already departed, said Corinne Lengsfeld, senior vice provost for research and graduate studies and acting dean of the Ritchie School of Engineering and Computer Science. Eight faculty members remain, she said.

DU leaders said faculty members also voted to close three additional departments: ; ; and .

Yet no academic programs are being eliminated, Haefner said. All current academic programs for the closed departments — including undergraduate majors, minors and graduate degrees — will continue outside of those departments, he said. New students will be able to begin those programs next academic year, and current students can continue and achieve their degrees outside of the eliminated departments, Loboa said.

As part of the restructuring — which has been in development for years through committee work with staff, faculty and administration — schools within DU are also merging.

The Ritchie School of Engineering and Computer Science is merging with the . The will join with the and the .

To “integrate the performing arts,” the , the and will be brought under the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.

“Change is hard, but in reality, higher education is under a lot of pressure,” Lengsfeld said. “Not just financially, but also public pressure to be more agile and adapt and to create higher return on investments for students who attend and get degrees, so in some ways right now this is very painful, but I think in the end it����ap going to be very healthy.”

DU is also investing in “interdisciplinary hubs” to better connect faculty, staff and students across and within colleges, Loboa said.

As an example, DU’s will now work with the new dean of the combined Graduate School of Professional Psychology, Graduate School of Social Work and Morgridge College of Education to integrate training clinics from four existing colleges into one on-campus mental health clinic for students.

The university is building a hub focused on preparing undergraduate students for careers in health, DU leaders said, by integrating existing kinesiology and pre-health programs.

“Yes, this moment is hard, but lower student numbers are an indication we’re not faring well with the needs of the student population or the desires, so this is a great time to pivot, rethink and push forward in places we can excel,” Lengsfeld said.

Since last fall, three committees — including staff, faculty and administration — were tasked with creating recommendations and discussing enrollment and retention, career outcomes and artificial intelligence and academic excellence.

The restructuring announced Tuesday followed committee discussions and approval from the provost, chancellor and DU Board of Trustees.

“I don’t know about specific cost savings,” Loboa said when asked how much money these closures and mergers would save the university. “I think it����ap more about leaning into our future and providing what����ap best for our students and our faculty. Any time you reduce administrative staffing, and if you have fewer deans and associate deans, you’re going to have cost savings. For me, the bigger component is we are leaning into what we’re exceptional at and really making sure we’re providing what will best serve our students.”

Later Tuesday, Loboa sent an email to the DU community informing them about the academic realignment, a message that listed data and documents used to make the restructuring decisions. One document listed in the email was “analysis of financial cost and savings opportunities resulting from restructuring.” When The Post asked to review that document, Stone said it was redacted along with another document titled “FY27 Budget along with three-to-five-year enrollment projections.”

In September, Loboa said the university will begin internal searches for two founding deans to lead the newly merged colleges. They will oversee much of the restructuring.

“I’m not worried about the university because I know the educational experience is top, top, top-notch,” said Sahara Byrne, dean of the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.

What worried Byrne when she arrived at DU about a year ago, she said, was the faculty size, which she believed was too large for the number of students, as exemplified by course cancellations due to low enrollment.

Byrne said she took the position with faculty and staff that it was their collective problem to fix. She began meeting with departments, letting them know which she felt had too many faculty members and which were in good shape.

“All of us would have loved to have done this over a 5-to-10-year timeline, but I did worry we would be in very big trouble if we didn’t start thinking in solutions soon,” she said.

Byrne said she believes religious studies students will actually have a better experience after the department closure with incoming lounges, better advising and more interdisciplinary learning.

Rumors and tensions among DU faculty had heightened as the university prepared to release its decisions on closures, mergers and other forms of right-sizing, Byrne said, noting she recently had a faculty member run into her office and ask whether the university was closing.

“I think people are worried,” said Sarah Watamura, president. “What����ap been has made it clear what the sector is up against. I’m happy that we’re being responsive to those changes, and I think, for the most part, they are changes that make sense for us across a long history of things we’ve considered doing. I think change is hard, and I think, particularly, the loss of colleagues is something I never expected to experience.

“Department closures, that kind of thing that impacts our ability to retain faculty and staff, is heartbreaking,” she said. “And yet, I think we have to adjust like schools all over the country to the demands that we’re facing.”

The member of the fire department, who has not been publicly identified, went to a physical black box and pressed a button to manually turn on the sirens, which sounded for a full three-minute cycle shortly after 4 p.m. Monday as storms rolled through Denver during a tornado watch that covered the Front Range and much of the eastern half of the state.

The man had received a report of a tornado on the ground in northeast Denver, but did not verify that with the or the city’s as required by protocol, said Loa Esquilín García, a spokeswoman for the Office of Emergency Management.

“He was trying to do his best to make sure residents were safe and did not verify that notification, that sighting, and activated the sirens,” she said.

Esquilín García declined to identify the fire department member or say who reported the supposed tornado to the man, but noted the report was not from an official source.

Denver Fire Department Deputy Chief Kathleen Vredenburgh said Tuesday that the department received the unconfirmed report of a tornado from . She said five people on shift within the fire department have access to the alarm system.

“We are working now on policy improvements so that doesn’t happen again,” she said.

The city’s emergency sirens can be triggered remotely or turned on at several physical locations in the city, Esquilín García said. Particular teams within the fire department, Denver International Airport and the Office of Emergency Management are authorized and trained to turn on the sirens. She declined to say exactly where the sirens can be activated, citing the need to keep such locations secure.

The city’s emergency sirens are set up to sound automatically if the National Weather Service office in Boulder issues a tornado warning for Denver, Esquilín García said. In such a scenario, the sirens would sound and residents in the danger zone would also receive an alert on their cellphones, she said.

Similarly, if the city were to sound the siren manually for civil unrest or another emergency, officials would also send out an accompanying cell phone alert, she said.

“We send a message to people’s phones saying, ‘Hey, they are sounding, this is what they mean,’ ” Esquilín García said. “Sirens do not sound without a text alert.”

That did not happen Monday. Instead, the member of the fire department manually set off the sirens on his own, which ran for three minutes before shutting down. The system worked like it was supposed to once it was turned on, and there was no technology failure or malfunction, Esquilín García said.

“The city is implementing corrective actions, including a comprehensive review of alerting policies and procedures and enhancements to training and exercises for personnel involved in emergency alerting and warning operations,” she said in a statement.

Monday’s incident was the third time in five months that city officials accidentally sent out a Denver-wide safety alert. In January, residents across the city received a warning about an “active threat” near the University of Denver — an alert that was “broader… than intended,” city officials later said.

Then, in April, an alert about a robbery in the Ruby Hill neighborhood was again pushed out citywide; police said it was “inadvertently sent out further than intended.”

Greg Heavener, a warning coordination meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Boulder, said Tuesday that people who receive weather warnings or hear sirens should take a few moments to verify the alert with official sources before taking shelter.

The concern with false alarms, he said, is that people eventually start to ignore all alerts, even those that warn of real danger.

“I can’t say at what number of false alarms people start tuning them out,” he said. “But we are in the prime-time severe weather season in Colorado. So if people start ignoring alerts now, it could pose a greater life threat to them. We are getting to that peak. Storms, tornadoes, flash floods are going to continue to increase across the region.”

Esquilín García said Tuesday that city residents can trust the Office of Emergency Management, but acknowledged “shortcomings” in the warning system.

“We do still have a long way to go to keep building that trust,” she said. “… There is that work that is constantly happening to get better at alerts and warnings.”