RMIAN’s Social Service Project (SSP) has an opening for a TEMPORARY bilingual social worker to work with clients receiving legal representation through the Detention & Children’s Programs and to support our Social Service Project in resource development and organization.   

The current position is for six months in order to provide coverage for a staff social worker on leave.  If additional funding is secured, the opportunity for a full-time permanent position may become available. 

The distinction between federal law enforcement and civil immigration enforcement exists partly to bolster public safety, current and former prosecutors said. They were joined in that opinion by immigration lawyers who monitored Wednesday’s actions closely or were on the frontlines helping people as they entered detention. 

The community needs to be able to trust law enforcement officers and those officers need to be able to rely on the community — and depending on the crime, sources in the community — to tell them things. 

“If they don’t trust law enforcement, they probably won’t go to them and tell them, hey there is a dangerous thing happening in my neighborhood,” said Laura Lunn, an immigration attorney at the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network, who works out of the GEO detention center, which houses immigrants. “When you blur the lines between these different agencies, you are causing distrust within the community of both agencies.”

Two days after tactical SWAT vehicles traversed Denver and Aurora and dozens of armed federal agents went door to door looking for Venezuelan gang members, federal officials have not said how many people they detained or whether they were connected to crimes. 

Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network said in a news release that “while ICE is claiming these raids are targeting individuals charged with crimes, we know that they are sweeping up immigrant community members indiscriminately.” 

Shira Hereld, one of the organization’s attorneys, said they saw a young girl holding her crying baby sister after their mother, their only parent, was taken by ICE agents. Hereld also saw the neighbors band together, check in on each other and help people find housing.

“These raids simultaneously expose the worst inhumanity of ICE and the most powerful humanity of our Colorado community,” Hereld said. 

In 14 years of working as an immigration attorney, Laura Lunn says she has never seen Immigration and Customs Enforcement show force like the agency did in the Denver metro on Wednesday morning.

“Today was all about a massive waste of resources, a lot of fear-mongering in our community,” said Lunn, who's the director of litigation and advocacy for the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network. “Ultimately, at the end of the day, it sounds like they arrested very few people.”

“It is clearly just to show the kind of might that these law enforcement agencies have with their military-grade vehicles to go and instill incredible fear into small children and crying babies,” Lunn said.

RMIAN condemns the ongoing ICE raids happening in Denver and Aurora. While ICE is claiming these raids are targeting individuals charged with crimes, we know that they are sweeping up immigrant community members indiscriminately. RMIAN staff were horrified to see the inhumane and violent approach in yesterday’s raids. 

Today, RMIAN and other partner organizations, represented by Gibson Dunn, announced the filing of a federal lawsuit against the government for shutting down critical legal orientation programs for immigrants, including people detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The lawsuit, filed against the Department of Justice (DOJ), Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, and other defendants, challenges the government’s recently imposed stop-work order for legal access programs that have obliterated access to the most basic information for unrepresented noncitizens about their rights and obligations throughout removal proceedings. 

“While we all want to live in safe communities, we know this law will not make our communities safer,” shared Nicole Loy, Policy and Campaigns Manager with the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition (CIRC). “Instead, it creates a chilling precedent by mandating the detention of immigrants who are merely accused of certain offenses, undermining the fundamental principle of ‘innocent until proven guilty, and further criminalizing black and brown communities, who are already unfairly targeted by law enforcement.’ This law will further erode trust between law enforcement and immigrant communities, leading to fewer crimes reported, and making everyone less safe.” More here.

On January 31, 2025, the ACLU of Colorado and the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network (RMIAN) sent a letter to school districts in Colorado to provide information about the legal rights of immigrant students in Colorado and the legal responsibilities of school districts towards their students. More here.

“Taking away access to these essential and life-saving immigration legal service programs while simultaneously ordering increases in immigration enforcement and detention that will trample community members’ rights is a shocking and gross violation of the fundamental principles of due process, equal access to justice, and to our values for caring for our community members and loved ones,” Mekela Goehring, the RMIAN executive director, says in a statement. Full article here.