Overview
- Mayor Mike Johnston’s Executive Order 152 directs Denver police to protect protesters, document federal actions with body cameras, and detain any immigration agent using excessive force.
- The measure bars ICE and related agencies from staging or operating on city‑owned or city‑controlled property and restricts city data and technology sharing with DHS absent a warrant or court order.
- DHS called the directive “legally illiterate” and argued local officials cannot bar ICE from carrying out federal law on public property, a claim the mayor’s office disputed.
- Law scholars offered mixed views, with some noting a city’s authority as a landowner to limit access to its facilities and others questioning the order’s practical reach without active enforcement.
- City leaders signaled additional steps, including a pending council proposal to require federal agents to show identification and not mask their faces, as Denver positions itself following deadly ICE operations in Minnesota.