Teller Co. Sheriff says 3 Venezuelan immigrants with ties to incidents in Aurora have been arrested

TELLER COUNTY, Colo. (KRDO) - With President Donald Trump signing several impactful executive orders on immigration, KRDO13 Investigates had an opportunity to sit down with Teller County Sheriff Jason Mikesell about the future of immigration enforcement in Colorado.

During the interview, Sheriff Mikesell revealed that in the past week, his deputies have arrested three undocumented Venezuelan immigrants, who he says all have ties to the 'incidents in Aurora'.

"It's not just out of Aurora. There's also issues here in local and rural Colorado, just like everywhere else in every sheriff in the state is dealing with it." said Mikesell, who added that more details on those arrests are expected to be released later this week.

He also briefly stated, that he did have information about potential federal immigration raids in Colorado, but wouldn't elaborate further.

The trio of arrests serve as just the latest example of cases that Sheriff Mikesell explains he is actively working on involving undocumented immigrants in Teller County.

"I do have open cases throughout this county that do involve criminal illegal aliens are still on the run that we have not been able to work with ice on because of the state laws." Mikesell said. "I will tell you, that's going to come to an end one way or the other. I'm going to work with ICE on those investigations. Nobody's going to stop me do that because there is a need for us to be able to bring people to justice." the Sheriff said.

He believes the new Trump administration will allow for more federal partnerships and funding, among other changes as a slew of executive orders rolled out on Monday.

A number of executive orders have been signed by President Donald Trump addressing the border, immigration, and deportation. All of which are topics that Sheriff Mikesell has long been vocal about.

"I really think what you're going to see is more of the criminal element that are being dealt with, more the cartels, more of the gangs," said Sheriff Mikesell.

One executive order specifically designates cartels to be considered terrorist organizations, which he says is an important change of label from a law enforcement perspective.

"[It] now increases the ability for federal agencies to get more money involved, to put more people in the field. They go after them, more stringent on crimes to where U.S. attorney's office is going to have to prosecute way more crimes." said Mikesell.

He later added that it will also give local law enforcement agencies more room to operate.

"The one thing Colorado does say that you can do, is you can assist in the effort in an investigation, a federal investigation. Well, if they're now terrorists and we're working on federal immigration crime that is now a terrorist related, it does open the doors. So we'll see a lot of that as a funding mechanism to fight these things." Mikesell explained.

The Teller County Sheriffs Office's agreement with Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE), known officially as a '287 G agreement', has allowed the agency to house suspected illegal immigrants in jail since 2019. It is the only agreement like it in Colorado.

Mikesell says however, the space for housing those immigrants was forced to close last year, as it was no longer receiving funding from the State budget.

"That's [now] costing the county anywhere from $1 million to $2 million dollars," he said. "Someone has to house [the immigrants], we've been a housing facility for so many different contracts, and [to] identify one contract that now hurts the taxpayers of this county, that's a big issue." he added.

Mikesell has been sued twice over his 287 G agreement with ICE. The first lawsuit brought forth by the ACLU, was settled in District court, where a judge in Cripple Creek deemed the Sheriff was working within his legal rights. The second case then came in the Colorado State Court of Appeals.

Ultimately, that Court ruled he was no longer allowed to make arrests -- but was shown to be following Colorado law in other ways. The Sheriff clarified on Monday morning that he has continued his 287 G agreement with ICE in all other facets since that decision.

President Trump has also signed another executive order relating to birthright citizenship. The Colorado Attorney General announced Tuesday that he is suing over the order, alleging it's a violation of the 14th Amendment.