The Colorado legislature is considering a bill that would allow citizens to sue federal immigration officers over constitutional violations.

The bill comes as the nation reacts to Immigration and Customs Enforcement tactics in Minnesota that put federal enforcement agents in direct conflict with the community.

“We can debate what the right immigration law is – how many people should be allowed to come to this country, how many people get this or that status,” Colorado Senator Mike Weissman, D-North Aurora and a prime sponsor of the bill, told The Center Square. He later added, “I don't care who's in charge in government. You should not get to violate people's constitutional rights with no consequence.”

Image

The bill, SB26-005, or the Rights Violation In Immigration Enforcement Remedy, introduced Jan. 14, has yet to see a general vote by either the Colorado Senate or House.

The bill would allow any person in Colorado injured by an ICE agent during immigration enforcement to bring them to court on a civil action on claims of constitutional rights violations. As a civil action, ICE agents could not be ordered to jail directly if they lost the case.

The Colorado bill’s introduction comes as the country reacts to expanded immigration enforcement during President Donald Trump’s second term. Since taking office in January 2025, until December, people held in immigration detention rose 75 percent to nearly 66,000 – the highest level in history, according to the American Immigration Council.

At the same time, ICE financing has skyrocketed after this summer’s One Big Beautiful Bill to become the most funded federal enforcement agency. ICE was previously allocated $10 billion annually and now has $85 billion at its disposal,according to NPR.

“Look, I'd love it if we put this on the books and nobody has to use it,” Weissman said of SB26-005. “I mean, that would be an amazing outcome. But it’s not an outcome I'm optimistic about right now.”

That pessimism comes as ICE agents have directly conflicted with U.S. citizens across the country, primarily in Democratic-governed cities. ICE operations in Los Angeles; Portland, Ore.; Chicago and Minneapolis have been widely publicized in recent months, and videos from these cities have shown ICE agents repeatedly using force.

Image

Last month, two protesters in Minneapolis - U.S. citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti - were shot and killed by ICE agents in unrelated incidents. The increased violence comes as the training period for agents has been more than halved to around six weeks over the last year, according to The Poynter Institute. Opponents of the ICE operations have argued their conduct has violated citizens’ constitutional rights.

“Colorado needs a law like this right now because our federal constitutional rights are the most important rights that any of us has in this country,” said Weissman. “We do not have a sufficient remedy for when those rights are violated by federal or other government officials, provided to us in federal law or in state law.”

There have been a select few cases when citizens have successfully sued federal enforcement agents. They fit into a narrow rule called Bivens Action, based on a 1971 Supreme Court ruling Bivens v. Six Unknown Federal Narcotics Agents, when a citizen sued for violation of their Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure. Since then, the Supreme Court has said nearly all other constitutional violations by federal officers are in Congress’ jurisdiction, not the courts.

“So, very simply, Senate Bill 5 seeks to fill that gap in the law so that people have a clear and available pathway to vindicate their constitutional rights,” said Weissman.

On Monday, an amendment to SB26-005 was passed in the Senate Judiciary Committee, which Weissman chairs.

The Republican-controlled Congress has proposed some legislation to curb ICE since its operation began in Minneapolis. Recently, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, who caucuses with Democrats, proposed to cut $75 billion in ICE funds. Nothing has passed out of either the House or Senate yet.

“I would love it if the federal government would step in and do something meaningful here,” said Weissman, but added he was not optimistic at the moment.

Weissman, who represents a district where over 40 percent of constituents are Hispanic, said his federal enforcement concerns had taken him into conversations outside of Colorado.

“I am talking with legislators in other states who are seeing the impact of federal overreach in their communities,” he said. “Frankly, a lot of us who care about constitutional rights and civil rights and the prerogatives of immigrant communities that may be disfavored by the federal regime have kind of found each other out there.”