Immigrant rights groups around Denver are scrambling to reach out to Temporary Protected Status communities in the Centennial State and provide information about the changes coming out of Washington, D.C — and what to do if they find themselves subject to immigration enforcement.
Yesterday, U.S. House minority leader Nancy Pelosi spoke for eight consecutive hours on the chamber’s floor about the need for immigration reform, with a particular focus on Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, an endangered program that grants temporary but renewable legal status to those born outside the United States and brought here without documentation as children. Among the DACA recipients she lauded was Denver’s Marco Dorado, whose inspirational story was first told in this space circa March 2017. See the video below.
Fair Districts Colorado, a coalition of civic organizations and former state elected officials, is pushing for a ballot initiative that would upend redistricting and, it says, put an end to gerrymandering. A group resisting the plans has called for more transparency and less partisan influence, going so far as to take the plan to court and file a counter initiative. But now that the court battle is over and the petition is set to circulate, the fight may be close to over. Here’s what to expect.
In recent days, as we’ve reported, the Fremont County coroner’s office identified human remains found on the Arkansas River in July 2017 as Eric Ashby, a rafter who vanished while searching for New Mexico author Forrest Fenn’s $2 million treasure the previous month. Ashby is the namesake of Eric’s Law, a piece of legislation that would require individuals to tell authorities when they witness someone in life-threatening situations, as four people believed to have been with him at the time he went missing apparently didn’t do. But while bill sponsor Representative Jim Wilson, whose district includes Fremont County, sees the need for such a law as obvious, he acknowledges that the idea has received some serious pushback despite the tragic circumstances of Ashby’s death.
Ex-El Paso County sheriff Terry Maketa may finally be off the hook in regard to a years-long scandal described in our previous coverage, on view below. Yesterday, February 5, the jury in his latest trial on corruption allegations found him not guilty of two misdemeanor charges but deadlocked on a pair of felonies. As such, the judge in the case declared a partial mistrial.
Since Xiuhtezcatl Martinez was six years old, he has fought against the tide of climate change. Now as a teenager, Martinez is on the forefront of two major environmental cases that could have wide-ranging repercussions on the oil and gas industry in Colorado and across the U.S.
In 2017, according to a Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment report accessible below, 69 terminally ill Coloradans received a prescription for medication under the End of Life Options Act, a measure originally known as Proposition 106 that was approved by voters in November 2016 and went into effect the following month. Fifty of those patients obtained their prescriptions from Colorado pharmacies, and while the CDPHE doesn’t know how many used them, the department received death certificates for 56 of them.
Denver District Attorney Beth McCann has signed on to an amicus brief regarding The City of Los Angeles v. Jeff Sessions, a lawsuit in which L.A. is taking on the Department of Justice under President Donald Trump over a policy to base grants from the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) in part on whether or not municipalities aid with federal immigration enforcement. McCann says she added her name to a list of 33 prominent prosecutors and law enforcement officials nationwide despite the possibility that Sessions and company could target Denver for retaliation as a result.
After this last round of legislators gone wild in Colorado — four politicians have been accused of sexual harassment in two months — lawyers have descended on the Capitol to teach handsy politicians how to maneuver the murky waters of a mixed-gender professional workplace.
Since the Equifax data breach, where more than 143 million Americans had their personal data hacked, consumers have been urged to freeze their credit to ensure that their identities were protected. Now, the deadline for free credit freezes are up. Here’s what you need to know.
On Tuesday, January 30, the Colorado Democratic Latino Caucus sent a letter to the Chief Justice of Colorado’s Supreme Court, Nancy Rice, demanding that all state-run probation offices cease voluntary assistance with federal immigration enforcement.
On January 30, Tom Tancredo announced that he was dropping out of the 2018 Colorado governor’s race, and in talking about his reasons for doing so, he speaks in the sort of unfiltered manner that is incredibly rare for any politician, no matter his ideological beliefs. Take these comments about the angry mood among some members of the electorate as epitomized by Internet trolls.
The 2018 race for governor of Colorado just got a lot less interesting. Tom Tancredo has reportedly dropped out of the contest, citing an inability to raise enough money for him to be competitive.
It turns out that, yes, Denver does have a busing program for its homeless, but it’s not robust or conspiratorial.
On January 24, Attorney General Jeff Sessions threatened to subpoena 23 jurisdictions to produce documents showing whether those jurisdictions are cooperating lawfully with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
On the eve of the giant Outdoor Retailer Show, which gets underway at 9 a.m. today, January 25, and runs through January 28 at the Colorado Convention Center, the retail powerhouse Patagonia joined with several advocacy groups to turn the McNichols Civic Center Building and the Bureau of Land Management headquarters in Lakewood into canvases of environmental protest by way of light projections that attacked the shrinking of two national monuments, Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante, by the administration of President Donald Trump.
A judge in North Dakota has accepted a plea deal bargain for Red Fawn Fallis, a member of Denver’s indigenous community who was arrested on October 27, 2016, during the Standing Rock demonstrations.
From implementing the first U.S. supervised injection sites for heroin users in Denver to widening local authority over oil and gas facilities, here are the most significant bills proposed so far.
Months have gone by since the story broke about Representative Steve Lebsock’s, a Democrat from Thornton, alleged sexual harassment of a fellow House democrat and ten other women. Instead of quietly resigning, Lebsock has taken the fight with his accusers public. And it’s messy.
The second annual Denver Women’s March attracted thousands upon thousands of women (and men) to downtown Denver on Saturday, January 20, but mainstream news coverage of the event had to be cautious about what images of the enormous throng to show. That’s because many of the most memorable signs we saw over the course of the morning weren’t exactly family friendly, as evidenced by the reference to First Lady Melania Trump’s clitoris above. But the best of them were both passionate and hilarious.
The second Women’s March of the Trump era motivated thousands of people to take to the streets in downtown Denver on Saturday, January 20, and speak their minds, express their anxiety, proclaim their power, and generally make the statement that they will not go quietly into that political good night.
If there was one Denver activist who was propelled into the spotlight to an almost surreal degree in 2017, it was Jeanette Vizguerra.
