{"id":14114,"date":"2026-01-05T22:54:02","date_gmt":"2026-01-06T05:54:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durangos-immigration-task-force-begins-to-take-shape\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T21:44:01","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:44:01","slug":"durangos-immigration-task-force-begins-to-take-shape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durangos-immigration-task-force-begins-to-take-shape\/","title":{"rendered":"Durango\u2019s Immigration Task Force begins to take shape"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The number of protesters gathered outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office Monday in Bodo Industrial Park in Durango grew rapidly from Monday morning to Monday evening. (Elizabeth Pond\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The city of Durango\u2019s Immigration Task Force approved by City Council in November is beginning to take shape.<\/p>\n

The Community and Cultural Relations Commission agreed on the basic form and function of the task force in November. Three CCRC members \u2012 Scott Smith, Olivia De Pablo Lopez and Arely Sanchez \u2012 were appointed to the task force and set about finding community members interested in serving on it.<\/p>\n

The CCRC agreed to a six-month deadline of May 16 to seek community feedback before delivering findings and potential action items to City Council.<\/p>\n

The task force\u2019s goal is to determine how the city can support its immigrant community and to identify ways other businesses, organizations and community members can contribute outside of the city\u2019s scope.<\/p>\n

City Council approved the task force soon after an Oct. 27-28 protest against U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement unfolded outside the ICE field office in Durango\u2019s Bodo Industrial Park. The protest formed after a father and his two children with an active asylum case were apprehended by ICE on their way to school.<\/p>\n

Protesters chained the entrance gates to the field office and formed a human chain outside the gates with the goal of preventing federal officers from transporting the children to an out-of-state immigrant detention facility. Federal agents responded with pepper spray and rubber bullets.<\/p>\n

At the next regular City Council meeting Nov. 4, Councilor Jessika Loyer said passing a resolution to form the Immigration Task Force that evening was \u201cthe most urgent and important action we can take right now to begin healing and create tangible, local protections.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said she regretted not forming a task force sooner.<\/p>\n

CCRC members discussed deliverables at their November meeting about the task force. Smith, CCRC chair, and Blair Martinez, vice chair, said they had met with city staff prior to the meeting for a conversation about general recommendations, including not having more than three CCRC members on the task force.<\/p>\n

Limiting CCRC members on the task force to no more than three prevented task force meetings \u2012 which are likely to involve sensitive conversations with members of Durango\u2019s immigrant community \u2012 from becoming subject to open records requests. That is because if four or more members of the seven-member CCRC board convene at once, the meeting has a quorum and is officially a public meeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we only have three, that helps things not be available to the public but for good reason,\u201d said Klancy Nixon, city community engagement specialist and staff liaison to the CCRC. \u201cThere are immigrants in our community that \u2026 do not want their names to be public record.\u201d<\/p>\n

De Pablo Lopez said the safety of immigrants should be a top priority for the task force, and the task force\u2019s mission should also align with the CCRC\u2019s and city\u2019s missions.<\/p>\n

She said she wants to involve the Durango Police Department in some way and suggested police can provide training on protest safety to any residents who seek it out.<\/p>\n

Immigrant voices, she said, must be involved in the task force.<\/p>\n

CCRC member Daryl Oshiro said the task force doesn\u2019t need to \u201creinvent the wheel\u201d in determining how to support the immigrant community. Other communities, after all, are dealing with questionable immigration enforcement conduct across the nation.<\/p>\n

He said the task force and CCRC can look to other communities for examples of resolutions to pass and resources to tap into or seek out.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can only do so much within the law. But we need to hold people accountable here in our town to what those guidelines are,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s really important to measure the pulse of those various communities here. The results of that will drive the answers that we would like to have. And then we\u2019ll have to look at advice as to what we actually can do and not.\u201d<\/p>\n

One hurdle is the lack of immigration attorneys in the Durango area, he said.<\/p>\n

Smith said several community members who reached out to him about being on the task force are immigration attorneys.<\/p>\n

cburney@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Community commission to deliver findings in six months<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14115,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[364,950,28,904,994],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-14114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-community","tag-durango","tag-headlines","tag-immigration","tag-trueanthem"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14114"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19335,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14114\/revisions\/19335"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14114"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=14114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}