{"id":23727,"date":"2025-02-03T17:35:29","date_gmt":"2025-02-04T00:35:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/southwest-colorados-tribal-nations-warn-of-immigration-enforcement-activity\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:40:50","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:40:50","slug":"southwest-colorados-tribal-nations-warn-of-immigration-enforcement-activity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/southwest-colorados-tribal-nations-warn-of-immigration-enforcement-activity\/","title":{"rendered":"Southwest Colorado\u2019s tribal nations warn of immigration enforcement activity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Initial
Initial assessments indicate 80-120 barrels of oil-based drilling fluid that spilled in a tanker truck turnover on Southern Ute land on Monday will have little impact on the surrounding water systems, agriculture or wildlife. (Durango Herald file)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Tribal nations near the Four Corners are offering guidance to their members as fears of contact with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents \u2013 and mostly unsubstantiated rumors \u2013 rise within Indigenous communities.<\/p>\n

Leaders of the Southern Ute and Ute Mountain Ute tribes are urging members to carry multiple forms of identification and call local officials in the event that they are detained by federal immigration agents.<\/p>\n

In statements disseminated through social media, the Southern Ute Indian Tribal Council is telling members to ensure that both state and tribal IDs are up to date. The council also warned members to keep contact of friends and family information readily available.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere has been a recent federal response on illegal immigration in this country and those who are citizens may be improperly detained as part of these operations,\u201d the council said in a Jan. 24 statement<\/a>. \u201cThere have been no reports of ICE presence or improper detentions in our area.\u201d<\/p>\n

Officials spoke with ICE and were informed that deportation efforts, which have ramped up nationwide since the Jan. 20 inauguration of President Donald Trump, are targeting undocumented people who have committed serious crimes, have existing deportation orders or \u201cpose a potential risk to our community,\u201d according to a Jan. 29 statement.<\/p>\n

Technically, most tribal members are dual citizens of the U.S. and their sovereign tribal nation.<\/p>\n

But a legal filing related to the Jan. 20 executive order signed by Trump seeking to overturn birthright citizenship seemed to call that into question. The U.S. Justice Department\u2019s argument invoked an 1884 Supreme Court <\/a>ruling that found that Native Americans are not \u201csubject to the jurisdiction\u201d of the United States and therefore are not entitled to citizenship as defined in the 14th Amendment.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re attacking Native Americans and Mexicans \u2013 immigrants that might not be documented that are in the country \u2013 that\u2019s what they\u2019re targeting,\u201d Ute Mountain Ute Tribal Chairman Manuel Heart said during a special announcement broadcast on the tribe\u2019s YouTube channel Jan. 27<\/a>. \u201cBut in the mix of it, they\u2019re looking at us all as being noncitizens of this country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indian citizenship was formally codified into law<\/a> in 1924.<\/p>\n

Heart warned members to inspect any warrants closely, keep an eye on young children and to call 911 if federal immigration authorities show up at a home.<\/p>\n

On the Navajo Nation in New Mexico, Utah and Arizona, officials have also set up a tip line to report ICE activity, The Tri-City Record<\/em> reported.<\/a><\/p>\n

In a brief interview Thursday, a spokesman for ICE declined to comment on \u201ccurrent or future operations,\u201d in Southwest Colorado.<\/p>\n

Tribal members stopped by immigration authorities on the Southern Ute reservation may call Southern Ute Police Department nonemergency dispatch at 563-4401. The tip line set up on the Navajo Nation, Operation Rainbow Bridge, can be contacted at (855) 435-7672 or emailing info@operationrainbowbridge.com<\/a>. Heart encouraged UMU members to contact 911.<\/p>\n

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

Southern Ute officials encourage members to call local authorities if they are detained<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23728,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,904,629,547],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-23727","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-immigration","tag-southern-ute-indian-tribe","tag-ute-mountain-ute-indian-tribe"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23727","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=23727"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23727\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78235,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23727\/revisions\/78235"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23727"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23727"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23727"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=23727"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}