Colorado voters have spurned a conservative group’s effort to force police and prosecutors to aid the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda.
Amendment 81, which failed to receive 55% of the vote on Tuesday, would have required Colorado’s law enforcement agents to notify federal immigration authorities if individuals accused of violent crime were not lawfully present in the US or if their legal status was undetermined.
The mandate also included a 72-hour deadline for law enforcement agencies to alert the Department of Homeland Security after filing charges for crimes, such as murder, assault and arson, against possibly undocumented individuals.
Proponents for the measure, including the conservative non-profit Advance Colorado, reportedly argued it would ensure public safety by removing undocumented people who had committed crimes, or repeat offenders, from the country.
Critics of amendment 81 panned the measure, saying it took charges as evidence of criminality rather than as allegations.
“Being accused of a crime is not the same as being convicted, and our laws need to respect that distinction,” Shad Murib, the Colorado Democratic party chair, said in a Wednesday statement.
The reports to the Department of Homeland Security might have put individuals at risk of deportation before they received a trial. Concern also mounted over whether racial profiling would factor into how people’s citizenship status was questioned.
“We’r