Colorado Newsline: A bill to add oversight to federal immigration enforcement in Colorado passed its first committee hearing at the state Legislature on Tuesday, while that same committee killed another bill that would have required local law enforcement officers to be identifiable and trained on the state’s immigration-related laws.

“Communities are questioning whether public safety systems are there to protect them or to harm them,” said Rep. Elizabeth Velasco, a Glenwood Springs Democrat sponsoring one of the bills. “I believe that we are at a time where we must end up against the Trump administration to protect our state.”

The pair of bills comes in the second year of the Trump administration’s mass deportation effort against immigrants who lack permanent legal status, resulting in skyrocketing numbers of arrests and detentions. That campaign includes targeted crackdowns in cities like Minneapolis and Portland, Oregon, which have seen multiple fatal shootings as immigration agents clash with protestors. A lawsuit in Colorado alleges that immigration officers are arresting people without warrants despite a court order barring them from doing so.

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