Immigration and Customs Enforcement leadership in five major cities, including Denver, have been pushed aside to make way for more hardline Border Patrol agents. The change will likely increase tensions between the federal agency and Coloradans.

It will also make Colorado less safe as the emphasis shifts from capturing dangerous criminals to arresting anyone improperly in the country, regardless of criminal record.

The change demonstrates that the Trump Administration is more interested in optics and politics than good policy. Most commentators have highlighted Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and her chief adviser, Corey Lewandowski, as the instigators of the change. Rather than focusing on people with current removal orders for deportation, they have decided to go after everyone.

If that seems different than what President Donald Trump promised on the campaign trail, it is. Or at least it is different from what he told most people. He told people — and still does to this day — that he only wanted to get rid of the worst of the worst. 

But he always did so with a wink and a nod. He has never rebuked people in his administration who focused on the lowest hanging fruit, often people without criminal records who have lived in the country for years and decades.

How else could you describe ICE agents hanging out at immigration courts to detain people who show up for regular check-ins? These are literally people who have been handcuffed and hauled away for showing up and doing the right thing. 

For example, a Douglas County School District employee and her family were detained and shipped to Texas when she arrived for a routine appointment. If ICE wants to increase non-compliance, scaring off other law-abiding migrants is a good start.

Of course, for many the jackboot tactics are a feature, not a bug.

A perfect example is Greg Bovino, head of the Border Patrol. Raids under his leadership have been among the most controversial. From marching heavily armed officers through children’s summer camps in Los Angeles to midnight raids in Chicago, Bovino has become the avatar for brutality in immigration enforcement. 

A federal judge recently ordered Bovino to testify as he personally threw tear gas into a crowd, apparently against the judge’s prior orders. An appeals court has temporarily stayed the daily briefings to the court aimed at curbing excessive force.

The reprieve, along with the praise of Trump, has led Noem and Lewandowski, Trump’s former presidential campaign manager, to seek out more Border Patrol officers in Bovino’s mold. They want them to take over operations and employ the same type of intimidation and violence in more American streets. 

In Denver, the former lead official for the local ICE field office, Robert Guadian, got shipped off to Virginia a few days ago. His replacement has not been announced, but it is sure to come from Border Patrol. That will have repercussions for the city and state.

Just in time for the holidays, Denverites should prepare to witness a significant attack on its minority communities. More than a third of Denver’s population is Latino. Under a new Supreme Court policy dubbed the “Kavanaugh Stop” (after Justice Brett Kavanaugh who wrote the order), federal agents can stop and question anyone based on their race or ethnicity, the fact that they speak Spanish, their presence at a bus stop or agricultural site, or the type of work they do. 

Basically, Coloradans can be stopped for being brown.

Or speaking another language.

Or being at Home Depot.

Under new ICE leadership, we should expect to see such occurrences increase. As they attempt to meet the quotas set out by folks like White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, who wanted 3,000 arrests per day, the focus will turn to random stops and questionable detentions. 

That means fewer resources dedicated to long-term investigations into real threats to Coloradans, including actual drug dealers and cartel members. It also means more clashes between federal agents and local law enforcement. For example, the Durango Police Chief requested a Colorado Bureau of Investigation review of masked ICE officials who attacked protesters outside their facility.

These are only the immediate outcomes of the change. Long-term devastation to farmers, ranchers and construction companies that rely on law-abiding immigrants as the backbone of their workforce will take years to fully understand. The damage done to an entire generation too afraid to go to school will be astronomical.

The assault on constitutional norms will leave the greatest cracks since the Civil War.Colorado and the country face a dark chapter not seen since the days of Sheriff Bull Connor and the segregated South. The wave of officially sanctioned violence facing our friends and neighbors is about to grow exponentially.

Mario Nicolais is an attorney and columnist who writes on law enforcement, the legal system, health care and public policy. Follow him on BlueSky: @MarioNicolais.bsky.social.

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