A trusting relationship between community members and local law enforcement is key to keeping our communities safe.

We all benefit when our neighbors look out for one another and feel comfortable calling local authorities for help in an emergency. When people can trust local police, deputies, and other first responders to truly serve and protect our community, and to treat everyone equally, they won’t hesitate to call 911 if they witness a crime, see a fire break out, or hear someone crying for help.

Unfortunately, by pushing local law enforcement officers to aid the work of ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), the Trump regime is eroding the public’s trust in local law enforcement and making our communities less safe. 

Americans are justifiably frightened of ICE, a massively funded secret police force that is operating with no accountability. With masked faces and no identification, ICE agents are abducting men, women, and children off the streets and from their homes and workplaces in communities across the US. They are seizing US citizens, legal residents, and people whose only offense is overstaying a visa. 

With the Trump regime starting a new program to pay local police and sheriff’s departments to assist ICE, many people are even more hesitant to report crimes or dangerous situations to local law enforcement for fear that ICE may show up.

Fortunately Colorado state legislators have passed multiple laws over the past several years  that prohibit police and deputies from asking people about their immigration status or aiding in federal immigration enforcement.

As Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser stated, “Colorado law clearly directs that our limited state resources go to enforcing Colorado criminal laws and not be diverted to immigration enforcement.”

Nevertheless, instances of illegal collaboration between local law enforcement and ICE have been reported. Weiser recently filed a lawsuit against a Mesa County deputy who pulled over a 19-year-old nursing student on I-70, asked about her immigration status, shared that information with ICE, and kept her at the traffic stop long enough for ICE agents to arrive in the area and arrest her for no reason other than her immigration status.

Western Slope-based immigrant advocacy group Voces Unidas has urged Weiser to look into possible collaboration between the Garfield County Sheriff’s office and ICE as well. 

The push to get local law enforcement to collude with ICE is part of the Trump regime’s overall scheme to use the US military and law enforcement to intimidate the American people.  By deploying the military on domestic soil – Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Memphis, and threats to Chicago – Trump is trying to silence dissent and illegally seize more power. It’s a move straight out of the authoritarian playbook. 

In fact, the Trump regime is enacting all of the major elements of the playbook used by authoritarian leaders from Hitler to Putin, including claiming unconstitutional powers, blaming immigrants for our country’s problems, demanding loyalty to the regime and making in-group members (i.e., Republicans) afraid to voice any opposition.

Scholars have also found consistent themes in how people have successfully fought back against authoritarianism. They’ve found that, when diverse groups and sectors of society have engaged in sustained, non-violent civil resistance, rather than simply relying on the courts or the next election to save them, authoritarian regimes have been much more likely to be defeated. What’s key is that people across all sectors of a society – from businesses to faith communities – “get off the sidelines” and engage in different forms of non-compliance and non-violent resistance. 

Every act of refusing to comply with the Trump regime’s hatred and lying matters – it could be a business posting a sign in their window welcoming immigrants; local media running a story on how people’s fear of ICE is crippling many local businesses; a teacher hanging an “Everyone is Welcome Here” poster outside their classroom; or church leaders speaking out against Trump’s plans to build concentration camps. 

The idea that we are powerless to resist the chaos and cruelty of the Trump regime is exactly what they want us to believe – so don’t buy it. Show up at protests (another big one is planned for October 18 in Glenwood). Keep the heat up on any of our elected representatives who are not fighting fiercely for us as their constituents. And think about the different aspects of our community you are connected to – perhaps as an employee, customer, donor, or a parishioner – and urge those entities to stand up in whatever ways they can for our families and our freedoms.

“Pon tu granito de arena,” is a common Spanish phrase that means we should all contribute our grain of sand. It’s a reminder that even the most magnificent beaches are made up of tiny individual grains of sand. Let’s each do our part. Courage is contagious.

Debbie Bruell of Carbondale is a former chair of the Garfield County Democrats and is a past member of the Roaring Fork Schools Board of Education.