Since early February, a coalition of immigrant rights advocates, lawyers and community members have been working on a detailed sanctuary-city policy that they hope the City of Denver will adopt into law. The policy was unveiled on Thursday night at the Denver Inner City Parish before a standing-room-only audience that…
Today, Thursday, April 27, U.S. District Court Judge William Martinez granted class certification in a lawsuit that challenges Denver’s homeless sweeps. According to the attorney representing the plaintiffs, Jason Flores-Williams, the ruling is historic: It was made on civil-rights grounds, and the certified class covers every single person who finds themselves…
Maria de Jesus Jimenez Sanchez, an undocumented woman with four children, one of whom is developmentally delayed, has been deported from the Denver area to Mexico, even though her only crime beyond unauthorized border crossings was driving without a license. Her attorney says she was forced to walk back into Mexico by border agents who told her she’d be shot if she dared to look back.
Arturo Hernandez Garcia, a Mexican immigrant who made headlines when he spent nine months in sanctuary during 2015 at the First Unitarian Society in Denver, has reportedly been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Hernandez Garcia was the subject of a Westword cover story, “Sacred Ground.” He’s been fighting…
After Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20, the American Civil Liberties Union launched a major grassroots resistance platform called People’s Power. With help from the Bernie Sanders campaign, the movement’s website, peoplepower.org, has been a hub and organizing tool for creating events across the country. On Tuesday, one of those…
After former Colorado state treasurer Cary Kennedy announced that she is running for the 2018 Colorado governorship on Facebook Live from behind the wheel of a moving car, the video went viral for reasons she hadn’t anticipated; political opponents and the press needled her for supposedly distracted driving. But rather than fuming over the response, she says she’s pleased that so many people got to hear her message, which she expands upon in a wide-ranging interview with Westword.
On Wednesday, state lawmakers on the House Local Government committee heard from over sixty people who testified in favor of the Right to Rest Act, which would have banned law enforcement agencies and municipalities across Colorado from “criminalizing” homelessness by issuing citations or arresting anyone who rests, sleeps and eats in…
Time magazine’s annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world was just announced, and it includes someone in Denver who has been making international headlines lately: Jeanette Vizguerra. Vizguerra is a well-known activist and undocumented mother of four who has taken sanctuary at the First Unitarian Society in…
There was a moment during Monday’s Denver City Council meeting that felt like déjà vu for anyone who happened to be at another council meeting way back on October 26, 2015: the sudden swinging open of chamber doors, the single-file line of activists marching up to surprised councilmembers, a barrage of…
Keeping up with all of the developments around immigration and customs enforcement these days is proving to be quite the task; under the Trump administration, rarely a day goes by when there isn’t some noteworthy action from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or a policy change coming out of Washington,…
A bill that aims to create a task force to provide support — including mental-health services — to Colorado’s child-welfare caseworkers crossed its first hurdle on Tuesday, April 11, when it passed out of the House Public Health Care and Human Services Committee by a vote of ten to three. During the nearly two-hour…
Indivisible Denver, under the auspices of local artist Eric Shumake, is staging weekly rallies at the Denver offices of Senator Cory Gardner. Dubbed the Sunday Gardner, the gatherings blast the state’s highest-ranking Republican official for his unblinking support of President Donald Trump, not to mention his efforts to denigrate demonstrators by suggesting that they’re being paid to protest.
In a wide-ranging conversation with Westword about her new role as Colorado Democratic Party chair, former state senate president Morgan Carroll acknowledges mistakes made at the local, state and national level and talks about the need for innovation and fresh thinking during a period when cynicism about the political system is rising at a rapid rate. But she also exhibits enthusiasm and optimism about channeling anti-Trump energy into practical action.
Since President Donald Trump took office, attorney Hans Meyer has been at the forefront of multiple Colorado campaigns regarding immigration. He not only documented the presence of ICE agents at the Denver courthouse, but is the lawyer representing Jeanette Vizguerra, a mother of four who took sanctuary in a Denver church to avoid deportation.
Neil Gorsuch has just been sworn in as the latest justice on the U.S. Supreme Court at a White House ceremony today, April 10, following a rambling introduction by President Donald Trump, whose many shout-outs included Colorado Senator Cory Gardner. Gorsuch is the second Coloradan to serve on the country’s highest court. The previous Colorado product on the court was the late Byron “Whizzer” White.
The City of Denver hasn’t dropped efforts to prosecute eighteen disability-rights activists who were cited for trespassing in a downtown Denver building that houses the office of Senator Cory Gardner when they tried to protest against repealing the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare.
Last week, three people who’d been given urban-camping ban citations were found guilty of breaking the law. But from the start of the trial, potential jurors questioned the law itself, proving the five-year-old ban on camping in Denver is as divisive as ever. It’s just one issue we’ve covered lately…
Emboldened under the Trump administration, agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement have recently encroached into what Denver officials are calling “sensitive locations,” driving fear in the city’s immigrant communities. That includes undercover ICE agents infiltrating Denver’s courts to make arrests — as evidenced in a February video shot by the…
George Brauchler has become the first major Republican figure to announce that he’s seeking to be elected governor of Colorado in 2018. Learn more about him in a wide-ranging interview.
The bombing of the airfield in Syria has essentially muzzled members of the Colorado Congressional delegation who have been critical of Trump thus far, energized his backers and left Democratic Senator Michael Bennet searching for middle ground, as usual. In a statement, Bennet essentially validates the military response, with the minor caveat of suggesting that Trump consult with Congress, as he didn’t do in this case, if he’d like to take such action down the line.
Three people who were contesting Denver’s urban-camping ban were found guilty on Wednesday, April 5, at the Lindsey-Flanigan courthouse. The defendants — Jerry Burton, Randy Russell and Terese Howard — were determined to have unlawfully camped on November 28, 2016, and to have interfered with police operations at one location…
The man behind FuckCoryGardner.org, a website that’s attracted a sizable cult audience since launching on March 30, one week ago today, laughs frequently when describing his creation. But even though the name of the page and the graphics on it are funny, Denver’s Trevor Rawls makes it clear that the project is no joke.
