Colorado e-filing system reportedly requires lawyers to pledge not to aid ICE
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Colorado lawyers say the state’s electronic court records system requires them to certify that they will not share personal information to help ICE or federal immigration enforcement.
Multiple attorneys on
Covenant Law founder Ian Speir posted screenshots of a purported electronic form he had to accept to access Colorado’s court filing system.
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The page in question is not publicly accessible and appears to be accessible only to attorneys registered in Colorado, Fox News Digital’s review of the website found.
“I certify under penalty of perjury that I will not use or disclose personally identifiable information, as defined by [the act] obtained from this database for the purpose of investigating, participating, cooperating, or assisting in federal immigration enforcement, including enforcement of civil immigration laws and 8 USC Sec. 1325 or 1326, unless required by federal or state law or to comply with a subpoena, warrant, or order issued by a court,” the message said, asking attorneys to “accept” or “decline.”
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“Colorado now requires state attorneys, as a condition of logging into its electronic court filing system, to promise not to cooperate with federal authorities in enforcing federal immigration law,” Speir said in response to X.
Speir added that he does not practice immigration or criminal law, and that nothing in his cases would be relevant under the law. But he “can’t log into the state’s official electronic filing system without saluting ‘La Résistance’.”
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“I can no longer represent my clients, initiate lawsuits, access records, file documents in existing cases,” he said, adding that he chose the “accept” option “under protest.”
“The bottom line here is that Colorado appears to be illegally co-opting lawyers across the state to promote his anti-federal sanctuary policies,” Speir told Fox News Digital later Friday.
Attorney and former law professor Matt Barber added on X that the oath the state requires of lawyers is “indefensible.”
The announcement received by Barber states that the Colorado Judicial Department rolled out an “updated certification process” on March 30 to comply with the new law.
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Department of Homeland Security police officers patrol around the Edward Roybal Federal Building in Los Angeles. (Frédéric Brown/Getty Images)
Initial implementation was suspended in September amid “additional review,” the agency said in its notice.
“The majority of CCE information remains public; this requirement only impacts access to nonpublic personally identifiable information as defined by law,” the agency said in its new terms, adding that attorneys who choose to decline consent must complete a “brief certification” to proceed.
“Democrats are going back to their Confederate roots,” another critic joked, citing a screenshot of the 1956 law describing “seditious conspiracy” as opposing federal authority by force or “obstructing.”[ing] …the execution of any law of the United States.
Fox News contributor Guy Benson added: “Big lawsuits: now. »
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Fox News Digital has reached out to the Colorado Judicial Department, Gov. Jared Polis and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for comment.
The 2025 law, authored by Sen. Julie Gonzales, Democrat of Denver, and Sen. Mike Weissman, Democrat of Aurora, also prevents civilian arrests of people present in courthouses and “intervention of military force.”[s]” other states to enter Colorado without executive authorization, unless acting on federal orders.
And it repeals the requirement that applicants for college admission or a driver’s license sign a form stating that they have requested legal presence in the United States.
