Selected quotes:
Colorado’s law is very clear. Law enforcement does law enforcement. In Colorado, law enforcement doesn’t do federal immigration enforcement. The line is when a sheriff’s deputy, in this case, actually detain somebody in a vehicle for the purpose of enabling federal immigration enforcement to detain that person.
At that point, you’re not operating as a Colorado law enforcement anymore, because there was no Colorado law that was determined to be violated.
…
It’s very important to note here, this wasn’t about community safety. There was no basis for concern that she had committed any crime, posed any threat to public safety.
When there are people who commit violent crimes, crimes that warrant being deported, Colorado law enforcement routinely will share information, as provided under Colorado law, so that ICE can do their job and deport people who are dangerous. But this was a case of someone who hadn’t done anything wrong, didn’t pose any threat to public safety.
In that case, Colorado law enforcement shouldn’t take it upon an individual to go ahead and start acting as if you’re doing federal immigration enforcement solely for purposes of enforcing immigration law, which is totally federal, not for purposes of keeping communities safe. That’s what a state’s job is.
…
We in Colorado cooperate all the time with federal law enforcement partners. And if someone is here without authorization and they have done harmful, dangerous actions, they should be held to account. But what Colorado law says is, we need our law enforcement focused on law enforcement. We don’t have enough law enforcement officers in Colorado.
That’s a public policy decision that we’re making not to do the federal government’s work. It’s their job to do that work.
Phil Weiser, Attorney-General of Colorado
I’m so jealous of a State that even tries to keep their cops on a leash.
You just know the piggy is so pissed that he got in trouble for “doing his job,” as he sees it. I’m glad the AG is putting some fear into the arm of government whose job it is to restrict people’s freedom.
Fuckin’ scumbag:
Alexander Zwinck, Mesa County, Arizona, Sheriff’s Office: Where are you from? You got a little bit of an accent.
Yeah it’s kinda refreshing.
Mesa County, Arizona
There is no such place in Arizona.
Apache County
Cochise County
Coconino County
Gila County
Graham County
Greenlee County
La Paz County
Maricopa County
Mohave County
Navajo County
Pima County
Pinal County
Santa Cruz County
Yavapai County
Yuma CountyMesa is a city in AZ. And cities don’t have Sheriffs. Mesa County is Colorado.
So where is your “quote” from? Because it’s got problems.
Yeah, I think the article wrote it wrong.
I pulled it from there, as you can see by clicking the link.
Edit:
Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors.
Indeed it is there…
That makes the whole article suspect for me… Anyone writing news for their locale, will know at the very least what fucking counties belong to their state… For something like that to make it through the author and the copy editor is wild.
Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors.
Ah… There it is… It’s probably audio fed to an LLM… This whole transcript is likely an AI hallucination.
Edit: and this is from PBS? Come on… Don’t give the right even more reason to cancel you. FFS.
The audio from the body cam is there to hear, and it didn’t indicate who was talking in the moment. But that is indeed what he said.
Agreed that it is disappointing.
The audio in article doesn’t state
Alexander Zwinck, Mesa County, Arizona, Sheriff’s Office
Only the “Transcript” does. So no… you can’t say that’s what he said. The transcript itself shows the indication of who’s talking and stating that the officer is from Arizona is in the indicator… not the actual spoken words…
This is literally PBS feeding their shit through an LLM and not checking the results.
You’ve misunderstood.
The audio says who it is (but not in the moment), and the AI transcript got it wrong. Feel free to listen to the audio to confirm.
That sounds extremely well reasoned. It makes no sense for a deputy to decide on their own how they should spend the state’s resources, including their own paid time. It would be like a supermarket cashier deciding their time is better spent washing the windshields of cars in the parking lot.
Excellent analogy. Can’t imagine the store manager would think that was a good idea. Or in this case, the AG.
The problem with his argument, just to play devils advocate for what the right wing would say, is that local law enforcement has a responsibility to assist federal law enforcement to enforce federal laws even if they do not exist at the state level. The Supremacy Clause of the Constitution makes this very clear. With that being said, it is the role of the AG to resolve conflicts between state and federal law and from that perspective, they are also correct. At some point, it becomes a matter of what laws people choose to enforce, have the resources to enforce, or want to enforce or not for political reasons. This is kind of like the difference in federal classification of cannabis versus state classification of cannabis. If it is still illegal federally then in theory the feds can force the states to shut down cannabis shops and deport people. Just for clarity, the ancestors of the people being deported lived here long before the United States was created and have a right to be here and states have a right to determine the best path forward on cannabis. Just my personal opinion, but of course, even a state AG can have their opinion and there is always going to be a limit to their power. The Trump admin, Supreme Court, and Congress all on the other side of an issue makes it difficult to win. At the end of the day the truth is that there are not really any laws, the courts exist to determine things in favor of who has the most money, and money has bought everyone at all levels for a long time. It’s only what those in power choose to enforce, or how they choose to resolve contradictory state and federal laws, or how they are paid to decide how to resolve it, and so no laws really exist, it’s just up to whoever is in power at that point in time.
I understand you are playing the devil’s advocate here, but this is a legally misinformed take. There is a legal doctrine in American law called the “anti-commandeering doctrine”, which states that even though federal law is supreme to state law, the federal government may not “commandeer” organs of the state government by requiring them to perform actions in furtherance of a federal policy. Hence, it would be illegal for the federal government to require states use their law enforcement resources for immigration purposes.
The State of Colorado in particular has instead chosen to explicitly forbid its law enforcement agents from expending state resources to enforce or aid in the enforcement of federal immigration law.
