DENVER, Colo. (KMGH) — Mayor Mike Johnston on Thursday signed an executive order aimed at protecting Denverites should the Trump administration target the Mile High City with a surge of federal agents as it seeks to deliver on the president’s promise of mass deportations ahead of this year’s mid-term elections.
Flanked by the city’s chief of police, the city attorney and other community members, including Colorado immigrant rights activist Jeanette Vizguerra, Johnston said the signing of Executive Order 152 was not meant to goad President Donald Trump into sending thousands of armed federal agents into the city, but to protect the people of Denver — regardless of their immigration status.
“My first job is to run the city,” Johnston said. “But in today's America, that means answering questions from our residents about what happens if ICE troops descend on our city.”
Johnston, who alluded to the kind of aggressive immigration crackdown that upended Minneapolis earlier this winter and resulted in the killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents, said the order was meant “to provide clarity to Denver residents in a way that is both clear and responsible.”
The order requires Denver police to detain any federal officer and remove them from an enforcement operation if they’re using “excessive force” against protesters, and requires DPD officers to have their body-worn cameras on and recording should the city need independent evidence in case of a potential investigation against federal agents.
It also bans agencies like ICE from using city-owned or city-controlled property for their enforcement operations and reiterates that “spaces that have traditionally remained off limits (such as schools, community centers, libraries, shelters, hospitals and other public-facing service facilities) must continue to be so.”
Furthermore, the order prohibits city agencies from sharing information about a person's immigration status with the Department of Homeland Security without a subpoena, judicial warrant, or court order, “except as required by law.”
- Read the full text of the order here or in the embed below.
When asked whether the order would violate the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which dictates that federal law takes precedence when it contradicts state or local laws, Denver Chief of Police Ron Thomas said the order “makes it clear that federal agents are expected to follow local laws and public safety regulations.”
“While local police officers cannot and would not obstruct lawful immigration enforcement actions, all law enforcement officers have a statutory obligation to intervene if they witness illegal or excessive force being used by any law enforcement officer, including federal agents,” he said, adding Denver police would "lead with de-escalation to maintain and restore peace."
City Attorney Miko Brown told reporters the order was constitutional and “rooted in long-established legal principles.”
“This executive order is measured. It’s constitutional,” she said. “But beyond that, it reflects something deeper: That the law should be a shield for the vulnerable, not a source of fear. Setting clear legal boundaries is not an act of defiance — it’s responsible governance.”
The order, which goes into effect immediately, also bans federal agents from “standing in our way of saving someone’s life,” Johnston said, referring to a moment bystanders caught on video when Good was shot in Minneapolis earlier this year.
Additionally, the order allows Denver to investigate and prosecute federal agents if one of them injures or kills a civilian in Denver.
“We will not abdicate our responsibility to prosecute crimes in our city,” Johnston said, as he encouraged businesses to also take a stand, “so that no one has to worry if their dad will be abducted when he heads to the store.”
The Denver District Attorney's Office did not directly answer questions from Scripps News Denver about how the city would go about prosecuting federal agents, with a spokesman saying he could not "speculate on future events."
"But it is our responsibility to investigate the facts and explore charges in any case where a crime under state law has allegedly been committed by any person in the City & County of Denver," said spokesman Matt Jablow.
In a statement obtained by Scripps News Denver Friday, a DHS spokesperson said Denver's executive order "is legally illiterate." Their full statement is below:
This is legally illiterate. No local official has the authority to bar ICE from carrying out federal law on public property—just as they cannot bar the media from reporting on city streets. Enforcing federal immigration laws is a clear federal responsibility under Article I, Article II and the Supremacy Clause.
While Mayor Johnston continues to release pedophiles, rapists, gang members, and murderers onto their streets, our brave law enforcement will continue to risk their lives to arrest these heinous criminals and make Denver safe again.
It was not immediately clear what the DHS spokesperson referred to when they spoke of making "Denver safe again," as the most recent data shows Denver's homicide rate dropped faster than the national average last year, with the Denver Police Department reporting a 41% drop in homicides in 2025 compared with the year prior.
Thursday’s announcement is a more overt and defiant move by Johnston, who just last year went before a congressional committee to defend the city’s policies limiting cooperation with ICE.
The mayor said he believes this new order, combined with a measure before City Council that would ban ICE agents from wearing masks and would require them to identify themselves, “make for a combined strategy” of what the city will do to protect Denverites from federal overreach.
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Asked about how the measures would play out in Washington, City Council President Amanda Sandoval reiterated that these initiatives weren’t meant to provoke Trump into sending federal agents to Denver.
“This isn’t a call to say, ‘Hey, come to us.’ ICE is already here,” Sandoval said, adding the order "helps create clarity around what happens if there is an even bigger surge” of federal agents in Denver.
Johnston told reporters outside the City and County Building he wasn’t aware of any recent ICE activity in city-controlled property or whether Denver was being targeted next for a mass enforcement operation, but knows "there have been actions at federal properties and some federal buildings" in the past.
Immigration arrests across Colorado have increased 200% since Trump returned to the White House, according to researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder, who found that while arrests by ICE have gone up, the number of people being arrested with a criminal record has reached a near-historic low.
Denver’s order comes just a few days after some Democratic lawmakers in the state sent a letter to the DHS opposing the construction of an immigration detention facility in Hudson that would increase the number of detention beds in the state from 1,532 to more than 2,700 across the state, according to our partners at The Denver Post.
With Thursday’s order, Denver joins a handful of other Democrat-led cities like Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Boston, Oakland and Seattle that are trying to shield their cities from the kind of immigration enforcement actions the Trump administration employed in Minneapolis in January.