This story was produced as part of the Colorado Capitol News Alliance. It first appeared at cpr.org.
Newly hired Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportation officers in Colorado are receiving less training than their predecessors and getting conflicting guidance from their own local supervisors versus higher-ups at headquarters in Washington, D.C.
According to testimony in federal court on Tuesday in Denver, local ICE supervisors told a U.S. District Court judge they are trying to adhere to his preliminary injunction order in November that requires they follow proper procedures when conducting warrantless arrests for undocumented people.
At the same time, though, Washington, D.C. has been giving conflicting guidance that it’s allowed in a number of circumstances.
The tussle in Colorado over so-called warrantless arrests started last year when ACLU lawyers filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security for routinely, even daily, detaining people even without administrative warrants and without probable cause that the person being detained is both in violation of immigration laws and likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained.
In November, U.S. District Judge R. Brooke Jackson issued a preliminary injunction, ordering the federal government to comply with its own rules surrounding warrantless arrests and submit documentation proving they are going through the steps to make sure a detention is legal.
But ACLU lawyers asked for the Tuesday hearing because they say in the first documents released under the court order, it appears the federal government isn’t following the law.
In a nearly day-long hearing on Tuesday, Jackson heard from three deportation officers who gave vague — even sometimes conflicting and confused — explanations for how they go about deciding when and how to detain someone. This was particularly true for people they weren’t targeting for an immigration arrest — so-called “collaterals” or people an ICE officer just happens to run into.
The federal government asked that the ICE officers be granted anonymity, and Judge Jackson agreed to it.
One undocumented man, 53-year-old Deonicio Castillo Cabral, was working at a construction site in Parker in December and told the judge on Tuesday he has been in the United States without status since 1995 but has no criminal record or any pending criminal charges. He also has three American citizen children and has lived in the same house since 2008.
He said ICE agents didn’t ask him any flight risk questions — like whether he is employed, whether he owns a house, whether he has children — before putting him in detention for 48 days — including five days after his family paid a $2,500 bond.
Gregory Davies, who is an acting field office director in Colorado, told Jackson that he sent out emails and a slide presentation to his deportation officers in Colorado after the judge’s preliminary injunction ruling in November.
Davies acknowledged that he’s conducted some training, as well, but not until a couple of months after the ruling, and not for everyone who is working in the field. He also said that the Colorado ICE office has swelled from about 60 officers to up to 150 or more since President Donald Trump was elected in 2024, and a lot of people are new.
Davies, who is the 3rd highest ranking ICE official in Colorado, also told Jackson that the extensive training they all used to receive — more than 500 hours — has been cut by “hundreds” of hours during the surge in enforcement.
A memo by Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, issued Jan. 28, 2026, about warrantless arrests has some details at odds with Jackson’s preliminary injunction order from November, including that deportation officers have the authority to “consider” whether a warrantless immigration arrest is permissible. Lyons’ memo doesn’t detail the criteria required in order to conduct such an arrest.
Davies told Jackson he hoped his Colorado agents would clarify if they have any questions about how to legally conduct warrantless arrests — particularly given the Lyons message.
But he acknowledged no deportation officer has asked for any clarification so far.
The hearing is set to continue on Wednesday.
