Yes, you can file campaign finance complaints. What the hell is happening on Colfax? Cortez Colorado's hyper-local coverage.
Yes, you can file campaign finance complaints.
And when you think there's a genuine violation, you should.
After reading about some alleged misbehavior by Colorado State Senator Sonya Jaquez Lewis, I filed a campaign finance complaint with the Secretary of State's office.
This is something that needs to happen more often in this state: conservatives need to be paying more attention and getting involved when appropriate.
More in my recent op ed below.
What the hell is happening on Colfax?
First, let's talk some background. If you are here illegally or seeking asylum, your actions while here can have bearing on any attempts to get full legal resident status--as they should.
Do we really want to admit people who can't control themselves and their behavior?
I think it's reasonable to debate where we put the line, but I hope we wouldn't debate the concept of not wanting to allow people into this country that make poor choices.
The CPR article linked below touches on that topic, the first two paragraphs give you a sense (quoting):
"For two years, Denver welcomed thousands of new immigrants from Central and South America, housing and clothing the new arrivals mostly coming off of buses from Texas — much of it at taxpayer expense. But in that time, the city’s police department has doubled down on municipal tickets exposing some of those newcomers to expedited deportation by cracking down on low-level municipal crimes ranging from window washing to prostitution."
The backbone of the article here being that Denver Police Dept's (DPD) efforts at combatting crimes like prostitution could come back on anyone here seeking asylum at their trial; immigration judges might be apt to rule against an asylum claim for someone who's got a couple municipal tickets for soliciting prostitutes for example.
Again, quoting:
"Crimes of 'moral turpitude,' including prostitution, funnel undocumented immigrants down the pipeline for more rapid deportation, attorneys said. For an immigrant with Temporary Protected Status, for example, someone making a claim for asylum based on conditions in their home country and awaiting a decision on that claim, two municipal tickets can result in the loss of that status. That would leave them without protection against deportation and no way to legally work."
It goes further though. Again, according to the article, judges might be apt to rule against someone who has just been arrested (even if they're not convicted).
And a simple arrest, even without conviction, even when the charges are dropped, can lead to big problems outside of potential immigration issues. Thousands of dollars in fees for cars that were impounded, same for lawyer bills.
There are reasonable grounds here to think that these folks have been mistreated. Some of them undoubtedly have been. I'm sure that the advocates and immigration lawyers were ready with sympathetic cases to share with the reporter (and I'd bet my lunch they took the story to her).
Along with the reasonable grounds for thinking there's mistreatment, there are reasonable grounds for skepticism, however.
The first is the laughably simplistic leap of assuming that somehow the frequency of Hispanic surnames in arrest reports equals a disparate impact of police on those here seeking asylum (or here illegally). I can easily think of a handful of reasons why this pattern might have shown up that have nothing to do with someone's immigration status. Would that the world would be this simple. Obviously the cops are picking up people here illegally or seeking asylum, the lawyers had ready cases to share, but the idea that this is a differential harm specifically to those people based on last names in arrest files is a leap at best.
The second is the notion that somehow, because of a lack of understanding of the English language, those here would be more susceptible to accidentally triggering a charge of soliciting prostitution or other low-level offenses.
This latter seems more realistic than the former. If the things described in the article are true, things like asking for a phone number and then driving off without any genuine proffer of money in exchange for sex, then this is a misunderstanding. No charge should have been brought.
Again, however, the cases you see in the article were mentioned for that reason and the leap from a couple sympathetic cases to a pattern is a big one. If you dropped me in the middle of a foreign land and a woman suggestively dressed started paying me lots of attention, I don't think I'd have a hard time figuring out what's going on. They don't call it the world's oldest profession by accident. There have been women selling sex since there were women, there have been men buying it since there were men, and this happens the world around.
I was talking about this article with someone recently and that conversation helped clarify my thinking about this situation. I think that an effort to help clean up part of the city got crosswise with the city's stance on migrants, and this made a problem that now has to be cleaned up.
I think the parts of Colfax where lots of prostitution was happening resulted in lots of citizen/business complaints. These complaints drew in police stings. These police stings started to nab a bunch of people here seeking asylum or illegally. These arrests (even without charges) caught the eye of immigration advocates. This raised enough of a concern in the Denver City halls of power that something had to be done (made all the worse by CPR articles).
What they've done remains to be seen. From the article about all the city would say was (quoting):
"In an interview with CPR News, though, officials from Mayor Mike Johnston’s office said they already take immigration status into account. 'We are very mindful of the disparate impacts of criminal contact for people who may be undocumented,' said Sarah Plastino, the former director of the mayor’s Newcomer Program. She resigned in late December. She added there is 'no special pass' just because there are immigration consequences for certain criminal behavior."
The advocates, however, didn't seem to be as vague in their wishes. Quoting again, "Tvedt [Colette Tvedt, Denver’s chief municipal public defender] said she has asked Bordovsky’s [Marley Bordovsky, a city prosecutor in the code enforcement office] office for 'immigration safe' plea deals so undocumented people charged with these petty infractions could have an outcome that may not tip off federal immigration authorities. An example of this would be a plea down from solicitation to public nuisance so it wouldn’t be considered a crime of 'moral turpitude,' she said."
If you ask me, two things need to happen here.
One, is that anything below two or three municipal arrests (without conviction) need to be ignored by immigration judges. That's fair, that's reasonable. That allows for misunderstandings.
Two, there should be no special passes here, no "immigration safe" plea deals. The first reason is simple fairness. If I committed a crime like this, would I get a similar plea? If the answer is no, then no one should be treated specially, especially not someone who is here illeglly!
The second reason I can point you to is the case of Laken Riley. If you are not familiar with the story, I would point you to the second link below. Laken Riley was murdered by someone here illegally who was picked up on what could easily be construed as a "low-level offense"--shoplifting. He was due to be deported and somehow the ball got dropped. He then later allegedly murdered Ms. Riley.
It is a far cry from ignoring a park curfew to murder. But the point here is a caution that, while we shouldn't be too harsh, we should watch being too lienient.
Because for every poor man who simply said hello to a woman and got charged with soliciting, leading to his car being impounded, lawyer bills, and potential immigration trouble, there is someone for whom a minor crime is going to later end up being the start of a worse story.
https://www.cpr.org/2025/01/08/denver-policing-of-prostitution-low-level-crimes-affect-on-immigrants/
https://www.ajc.com/news/suspect-in-student-death-at-uga-cited-for-october-shoplifting-in-athens/KQNKOZMOLJBINHW4HQQXXZJ27Q/
Cortez Colorado's hyper-local coverage.
I had a reader send me a link to an online paper down in Cortez. I thought I'd share with you. I like the idea of really local news, and when I poked around in the link (at bottom), I liked it even better: it looked like there was a fair bit of information about how to get involved locally.
Give it a look and, if you're local or just want to know about far SW Colorado, check in regularly so you can stay up to date.
If you run or know of another good hyper-local online paper, please either let me know or add them to the comments!
https://www.thecortezchronicles.com/