WASHINGTON (AP) — With the Trump administration expected to reverse a controversial 2023 decision on the permanent location of U.S. Space Command, a review by the Defense Department inspector general could not determine why Colorado was chosen over Alabama.

The inspector general’s report, issued Friday, said this was in part due to a lack of access to senior defense officials during the Biden administration, when the review began.

The location of U.S. Space Command has significant implications for the local economy, given the fast growth in national defense spending in space-based communications and defenses.

In 2021, the Air Force identified Army Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, Alabama, as the preferred location for the new U.S. Space Command due to cost and other factors. But a temporary headquarters had already been established in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and after multiple delays President Joe Biden announced it as the permanent headquarters.

Alabama’s Republican congressional delegation accused the Biden administration of politicizing the decision. But Colorado, which has Republican and Democratic lawmakers, is home to many other Air Force and U.S. Space Force facilities.

As recently as last week, Rep. Mike Rogers House, an Alabama Republican who chairs the House Armed Services Committee, told a panel at Auburn University he expects the decision to be reversed by the White House before the end of April.

The location of Space Command would be one of many decisions that have swung back and forth between Biden and President Donald Trump. For instance, Biden stopped the construction of the border wall that began during Trump’s first term, only to have Trump now vow to complete it. And Trump is again seeking to ban transgender troops from serving in the military, after Biden removed Trump’s first-term limitations.

The controversy over the basing decision began seven days before Trump’s first term expired, when his Air Force secretary announced Alabama would be home to Space Command, pending an environmental review.

That review was completed about six months into Biden’s term and found no significant impact with hosting the command in Alabama. But the new administration did not act on the decision.

Instead, a year later, the Biden White House said it was keeping the headquarters in Colorado Springs, citing the time that would be lost relocating staff and the headquarters to Huntsville.

The report said interviews has been requested with Biden’s Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to understand why Huntsville was not named, but the Biden White House would only allow the interviews if administration lawyers were present. The inspector general rejected that condition, saying it could affect its unfettered access to information.

NEW YORK (AP) — The latest government waste touted by billionaire Elon Musk’s cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency is hundreds of millions of dollars in fraudulent unemployment claims it purportedly uncovered.

One problem: Federal investigators already found what appears to be the same fraud, years earlier and on a far greater scale.

In a post last week on X, the social media site Musk owns, DOGE announced “an initial survey of unemployment insurance claims since 2020” found 24,500 people over the age of 115 had claimed $59 million in benefits; 28,000 people between the ages of 1 and 5 collected $254 million; and 9,700 people with birthdates more than 15 years in the future garnered $69 million from the government.

The tweet drew a predictable party-line reaction of either skepticism or cheers, including from Musk himself, who said what his team found was “so crazy” he re-read it several times before it sank in.

“Another incredible discovery,” marveled Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who repeated DOGE’s findings to President Donald Trump in a Cabinet meeting last week.

Chavez-DeRemer’s recounting of the alleged fraud, including claims of benefits filed by unborn children, drew laughter in the Cabinet room and a reaction from Trump himself.

“Those numbers are really bad,” he said.

But Chavez-DeRemer needn’t look further than her own department’s Office of the Inspector General to find such fraud had already been reported by the type of federal workers DOGE has demonized.

“They’re trying to spin this narrative of, ‘Oh, government is inefficient and government is stupid and they’re catching these things that the government didn’t catch,’” says Michele Evermore, who worked on unemployment issues at the U.S. Department of Labor during the administration of former President Joe Biden. “They’re finding fraud that was marked as fraud and saying they found out it was fraud.”

The Social Security Act of 1935 enshrined unemployment benefits in federal law but left it to individual states to set up systems to collect unemployment taxes, process applications and mete out support.

Though states have almost complete control over their own unemployment systems, special relief programs — most notably widely expanded benefits enacted by the first Trump administration at the outset of the COVID pandemic — inject more direct federal involvement and a flood of new beneficiaries into the system.

In regular times, state unemployment systems perform “very well, not so well and terribly,” according to Stephen Wandner, an economist at the National Academy of Social Insurance who authored the book “Unemployment Insurance Reform: Fixing a Broken System.” With COVID slamming the economy and creating a flood of new claims that states couldn’t handle, Wandner says many more were “quite terrible.”

Trump signed the COVID unemployment relief into law on March 27, 2020, and from the very start it became a magnet for fraud. In a memo to state officials about two weeks later, the Department of Labor warned that the expanded benefits had made unemployment programs “a target for fraud with significant numbers of imposter claims being filed with stolen or synthetic identities.”

That same memo offered an option for states trying to protect a person whose identity was stolen to fraudulently collect unemployment benefits. To preserve a record of the fraud but keep innocent people from being linked to it, states could create a “pseudo claim,” the memo advises.

Those “pseudo claims” led to records of toddlers and centenarians getting checks. The Labor Department’s inspector general tallied some 4,895 unemployment claims from people over the age of 100 between March 2020 and April 2022, but another departmental memo explained that the filings stemmed from states changing dates of birth to protect people whose identities were used.

“Many of the claims identified … were not payments to individuals over 100 years of age, but rather ‘pseudo records’ of previously identified fraudulent claims,” the 2023 memo says.

A Labor Department spokeswoman did not respond to questions about Musk’s findings and DOGE gave no details on how it came to find the supposed fraud or whether it duplicates what was already found.

Though DOGE ostensibly looked at longer timeframe than federal investigators previously had, it tallied just $382 million in fake unemployment claims, a tiny fraction of what investigators were already aware.

In 2022, the Labor Department said suspected COVID-era unemployment fraud totaled more than $45 billion. The Government Accountability Office later said it was far worse, likely $100 billion to $135 billion.

“I don’t think it’s news to anyone,” says Amy Traub, an expert on unemployment at the National Employment Law Project. “It’s been widely reported. There’ve been multiple congressional hearings.”

If DOGE’s newest allegations have an air of familiarity, it’s because they echo its prior findings of about Social Security payments to the dead and the unbelievably old. Those were false claims.

That makes DOGE an imperfect messenger even when fraud has occurred, as with unemployment claims.

Jessica Reidl, a senior fellow at the conservative think tank The Manhattan Institute, is a fiscal conservative who so champions rooting out federal waste she has written 600 articles on the subject. Though she believes unemployment insurance fraud is rife, she has trouble accepting any findings from DOGE, which she says has acted ineffectively and possibly illegally.

“When DOGE says impossibly old dead people are collecting unemployment in huge numbers, I become skeptical,” Reidl says. “DOGE does not have a good track record in that area.”

Traub said the burst of pandemic-era unemployment fraud led states to implement new security measures. She questioned why Musk’s team was trumpeting old fraud as if it’s new.

“Business leaders and economists are warning about a national recession, so it’s natural to think about unemployment,” says Traub. “It’s an attack on the image of a critically important program and perhaps an attempt to undermine public support on unemployment insurance when it couldn’t be more important.”

Matt Sedensky can be reached at msedensky@ap.org and https://x.com/sedensky.

U.S. District Judge Charlotte Sweeney approved a temporary restraining order Monday night after the American Civil Liberties Union sued President Donald Trump and members of his administration on behalf of two Venezuelan men, referred to only by their initials, “and others similarly situated” who have been accused of being part of the Tren de Aragua gang.

For two weeks, the federal government is barred from using the Alien Enemies Act to remove plaintiffs D.B.U, R.M.M. and any other noncitizens accused of being members of the Venezuelan gang from both the state and the country.

“This ruling is a critical step toward restoring the rule of law in the face of a rogue administration that has shown utter disregard for the Constitution,” Raquel Lane-Arellano, the communications manager at the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, said Tuesday.

The judge’s order will remain in effect until a hearing is held in the case in Denver on April 21.

The White House did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday.

Trump invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act in March, proclaiming Venezuelans who are members of TdA and not lawful residents of the U.S. “are liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured and removed as Alien Enemies.” The administration has used the act to send immigrants — including at least one Venezuelan who had been detained in Colorado — to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador.

The act has been used only three other times in American history, most recently to intern Japanese-American citizens during World War II.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last week that anyone being deported under the declaration deserved a hearing in federal court first.

That led federal judges in New York and Texas to place temporary holds on deportations in those areas until Trump’s Republican administration presented a procedure for allowing such appeals. Sweeney’s order follows in their footsteps.

The Colorado order also comes as the ACLU warned, in an emergency filing, that the Trump administration as recently as Monday night may have been preparing Venezuelan men in custody in Aurora for another deportation flight.

The civil rights organization’s attorneys said they had received reports Monday that Venezuelan men being held at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s contract detention facility who were accused of being affiliated with the TdA gang “were rousted from bed and told that they would be leaving.”

The men repeatedly asked where they would be taken, and ICE  agents allegedly refused to answer, ACLU officials said in the document. The flight was later canceled and, as of Tuesday morning, the men remained in Colorado, the attorneys said.

Colorado immigrant advocacy groups applauded the ACLU’s legal challenge to the Alien Enemies Act and the judge’s order.

“The disappearance of our neighbors to a notorious prison without due process should be a wake-up call to the people of the United States,” said Jennifer Piper, the program director for the Colorado office of the American Friends Service Committee.

She added that the Trump administration is asking Congress to triple the budget for immigration detention from $25 billion to more than $60 billion — a request her group opposes.

“We hope that, as a country, we can do more than sending people to foreign prisons,” said Andrea Loya, the executive director of Aurora-based nonprofit Casa de Paz, on Tuesday. “We urge the federal government to make it right for the people they sent to El Salvador without due process.”

The Trump administration’s implementation of the Alien Enemies Act and the lawsuits that followed have become a flashpoint as more than 200 alleged TdA members have been sent from the U.S. to the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, in El Salvador, escalating tension between the White House and federal courts.

Inmates in El Salvadoran prisons face “life-threatening conditions, persecution and torture,” ACLU officials argued in court documents. That constitutes “irreparable harm,” they said.

D.B.U., a 31-year-old man who fled Venezuela after he was imprisoned for his political activity and protesting against the Venezuelan government, was arrested in January during a raid of what law enforcement and immigration officials have repeatedly called a “Tren de Aragua party” in Adams County.

The Drug Enforcement Administration said 41 people arrested that night were living in Colorado illegally and claimed dozens were connected to the TdA gang. None of those people were criminally charged.

According to the ACLU, D.B.U. was identified as a gang member based on a tattoo of his niece’s name — his only tattoo. He “vehemently denied” being a TdA member.

The second plaintiff in the lawsuit, 25-year-old R.M.M., fled Venezuela after two members of his family were killed by the TdA gang. ACLU officials said in the lawsuit he was afraid the gang would also kill him, his wife and his children.

R.M.M. was detained in March after federal agents saw him standing with other Hispanic men near their cars outside a Colorado residence that law enforcement believed was connected to the TdA gang, according to court records. Like D.B.U., R.M.M. was identified as a gang member based on his tattoos, including one of his birth year, one of his mother’s name, one of “religious significance” and a character from the Monopoly board game.

He is not and never has been a member of TdA, ACLU officials wrote in court documents.

The ACLU claims Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act is invalid because the TdA gang is not a “foreign nation or government,” and there has been no “invasion or predatory incursion” — both of which are required to invoke the act.

“Criminal activity does not meet the longstanding definitions of those statutory requirements,” ACLU officials said in the lawsuit. “Thus, the government’s attempt to summarily remove Venezuelan noncitizens exceeds the wartime authority that Congress delegated in the AEA.”

In addition to Trump, the Colorado lawsuit names U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, Acting Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Todd Lyons, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Director of the Denver Field Office for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Robert Gaudian and Denver Contract Detention Facility warden Dawn Ceja.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Sign up to get crime news sent straight to your inbox each day.

President Donald Trump on Monday reiterated that he’d like to send U.S. citizens who commit violent crimes to prison in El Salvador, telling that country’s president, Nayib Bukele, that he’d “have to build five more places” to hold the potential new arrivals.

Trump’s administration has already deported immigrants to El Salvador’s notorious mega-prison CECOT, known for its harsh conditions. The president has also said his administration is trying to find “legal” ways to ship U.S. citizens there, too.

Trump on Monday insisted these would just be “violent people,” implying they would be those already convicted of crimes in the United States, though he’s also floated it as a punishment for those who attack Tesla dealerships to protest his administration and its patron, billionaire Elon Musk. But it would likely be a violation of the U.S. Constitution for his administration to send any native-born citizen forcibly into an overseas prison. Indeed, it would likely even violate a provision of a law Trump himself signed during his first term.

Here’s a look at the notion of sending U.S. citizens to prison in a foreign country, why it’s likely not legal and some possible legal loopholes.

If it’s legal to do to immigrants, why not citizens?

Immigrants can be deported from the United States, while citizens cannot. Deportation is covered by immigration law, which does not apply to U.S. citizens. Part of being a citizen means you cannot be forcibly sent to another country.

Immigrants can be removed, and that’s what’s been happening in El Salvador. The country is taking both its own citizens that the United States is sending as well as those from Venezuela and potentially other countries that will not take their own citizens back from the U.S. The Venezuelans sent there last month had no opportunity to respond to evidence against them or appear before a judge.

That’s the deal the Trump administration signed with Bukele. The U.S. has sent people to El Salvador, Costa Rica, Panama and elsewhere even when they are not citizens of those countries. But, under international agreements, people cannot be sent to countries where they are likely to be persecuted or tortured.

Why does the Trump administration want to send people to El Salvador?

Bukele calls himself “the world’s coolest dictator” and has cracked down on human rights during his administration. He’s also turned El Salvador from one of the world’s most violent countries into a fairly safe one. Trump has embraced that example, including during the Oval Office visit Monday.

Sending immigrants from countries like Venezuela to El Salvador sends a message to would-be migrants elsewhere about the risks of trying to make it to — or stay in — the United States.

There’s a second benefit to the administration: People sent to El Salvador are outside the jurisdiction of United States courts. Judges, the administration argues, can’t order someone sent to El Salvador to be released or shipped back to the U.S. because the U.S. government no longer has control of them.

It’s a potential legal loophole that led Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to issue a grim warning in her opinion in a 9-0 U.S. Supreme Court finding that the administration could not fly alleged Venezuelan gang members to El Salvador with no court hearing, even after Trump invoked an 18th century law last used during World War II to claim wartime powers.

“The implication of the Government’s position is that not only noncitizens but also United States citizens could be taken off the streets, forced onto planes, and confined to foreign prisons with no opportunity for redress,” Sotomayor warned. She was writing to dissent from the majority taking the case from the federal judge who had initially barred the administration from any deportations and had ordered planes en route to El Salvador turned around — an order the administration apparently ignored.

A second case highlights the risks of sending people to El Salvador. The administration admits it sent a Maryland man, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, erroneously to El Salvador. A Salvadoran immigrant, Abrego Garcia, who has not been charged with a crime, had an order against deportation but was shipped to CECOT anyway. On Monday Bukele and Trump scoffed at the idea of sending him back, even though the U.S. Supreme Court ordered the administration to “facilitate” his return.

Wait, so can they send citizens to El Salvador?

Nothing like this has ever been contemplated in U.S. history, but it seems unlikely. There are other legal barriers besides the fact that you cannot deport U.S. citizens. The United States does have extradition treaties with several countries where it will send a citizen accused of a crime in that country to face trial there. That appears to be the only existing way a U.S. citizen can be forcibly removed from the country under current law.

The Constitution also prohibits “cruel and unusual punishment,” and one of CECOT’s selling points is that conditions there are far harsher than in prisons in the U.S. As noted above, federal courts have no jurisdiction there, and that may deprive people sent there of the constitutional guarantee of due process of law.

“It is illegal to expatriate U.S. citizens for a crime,” wrote Lauren-Brooke Eisen of the Brennan Center for Social Justice in New York.

She noted that even if the administration tries to transfer federal prisoners there, arguing they’re already incarcerated, it could run afoul of the First Step Act that Trump himself championed and signed in 2018. The provision requires that the government try to house federal inmates as close to their homes as possible so their families can visit them — and indeed transfer anyone housed farther than 500 miles from their home to a closer facility.

One last loophole?

There is one potential loophole that the administration could use to send a small group of citizens to El Salvador. They can try to strip the citizenship of people who earned it after immigrating to the United States.

People who were made U.S. citizens after birth can lose that status for a handful of offenses, like funding terrorist organizations or lying on naturalization forms. They would then revert to green card holders, and would be potentially eligible for deportation if convicted of other, serious crimes.

That’s a small, but real, pool of people. Perhaps the most significant thing about it is that it would require loss of citizenship first. In other words, there’s still likely no legal way to force a citizen out of the country. But a few could end up in legal jeopardy anyway.

BANGKOK (AP) — The Trump administration has taken its next steps toward imposing more tariffs on key imports, launching investigations into imports of computer chips, chip making equipment and pharmaceuticals.

The Department of Commerce posted notices about the probes late Monday on the Federal Register, seeking public comment within three weeks. It had not formally announced them earlier.

Although President Donald Trump paused most of his biggest tariff hikes last week for 90 days, apart from those for imports from China, he has said he still plans tariffs on pharmaceutical drugs, lumber, copper and computer chips.

The Commerce Department said it is investigating how imports of computer chips, equipment to make them and products that contain them — which include many daily necessities such as cars, refrigerators, smart phones and other items — affect national security. Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 permits the president to order tariffs for the sake of national security.

The probe includes assessing the potential for U.S. domestic production of computer chips to meet U.S. demand and the role of foreign manufacturing and assembly, testing and packaging in meeting those needs.

Among other aspects of the entire computer chip supply chain, the government intends to also study the risks of having computer chip production concentrated in other places and the impact on U.S. competitiveness from foreign government subsidies, “foreign unfair trade practices and state-sponsored overcapacity.”

After Trump said electronics would not be included in what his administration calls “reciprocal” tariffs of up to 50% on some nations, U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick explained in an interview on ABC News that pharmaceuticals, semiconductors and autos will be handled with “sector specific” tariffs.

“And those are not available for negotiation,” Lutnick said. “They are just going to be part of making sure we reshore the core national security items that need to be made in this country. We need to make medicine in this country,” he said. “We need to make semiconductors.”

The investigation into pharmaceutical imports includes ingredients used to make such drugs and touches on many of the same aspects of relying on imports to make them.

Asked about his plans for more tariffs on pharmaceuticals, Trump said Monday, “Yeah, we’re going to be doing that.”

He said it would be in the “not too distant future.”

“We’re doing it because we want to make our own drugs,” he said.

More than 70% of the materials, or active pharmaceutical ingredients, used to make medicines made in the United States are produced in other countries, with India, the European Union and China leading suppliers. The U.S. produces about a fifth of all pharmaceuticals made worldwide, but consumes about 45%, far more than any other country.

The U.S. also is a major producer of semiconductors, but only in some areas. It relies heavily on imports from Taiwan and South Korea for certain kinds of advanced chips. In particular, Taiwan dominates advanced logic chip production at 92% of all fabrication capacity according to the International Trade Administration, with South Korea making 8%.

Products like laptops, smartphones and the components needed to make them accounted for nearly $174 billion in U.S. imports from China last year. The administration’s plans suggest that such electronics will still be taxed by previous (non-“reciprocal”) tariffs — and potentially under additional, sector-specific levies.

Although major computer chip makers like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp. are investing heavily in U.S. manufacturing facilities, partly due to incentives put in place during former President Joe Biden’s time in office, the costly process of changing entire supply chains would take years.

Separately, the Commerce Department said Monday that it was withdrawing from a 2019 agreement that had suspended an antidumping investigation into imports of fresh tomatoes from Mexico, effective in 90 days. It said the current arrangement failed to protect U.S. growers from “unfairly priced” imports of tomatoes. Most tomatoes from Mexico will be subject to a 20.91% tariff, it said.

The state treasurer’s office manages the state’s finances. Bridges, a Greenwood Village Democrat, said he also sees the position as an opportunity to invest directly in Colorado instead of parking state money in things like federal treasury bills.

“There is a way to run the office that creates a direct and meaningful impact in the state of Colorado,” Bridges said in an interview. “It is a new and exciting toolbox to do a lot of the work I have been doing on housing affordability, renewable energy and all of the things that are important to the people of Colorado.”

He envisions using state money to invest in affordable housing, green energy production and infrastructure, while keeping money available for when it’s needed.

“We need to invest in our future,” Bridges said. “Sometimes investing in our future means you need it really liquid. Sometimes it means you really need a really high dollar return. Sometimes it means you need housing that Coloradans can afford, clean energy so they can efficiently heat their homes, and infrastructure that gets them that high-paying job they need to afford to live here.”

Bridges is the fourth entrant in the race. So far, state Rep. Brianna Titone, Jerry DiTullio and John Mikos, all Democrats, have announced their candidacies for the office. No Republicans have yet filed for it.

Bridges has served in elected office since 2017 and has helped write the state budget since 2022. He was reelected to his second and final four-year term in 2024. Besides the budget committee, he’s chaired the Senate finance and education committees.

Prior to elected office, he worked for then-U.S. Sen. Ken Salazar on military and small business policy, for Union Theological Seminary, and briefly for an investment management firm. He holds a master’s degree from Harvard Divinity School.

As chair of the budget committee this year, he has helped close a $1.2 billion budget shortfall that was driven by spiking Medicaid costs. The committee was able to preserve core spending on health care and education by finding cuts elsewhere. It called for combing through all of the budget’s nooks and crannies and creating the “most complicated budget the state has ever had,” he said.

Bridges called it “some of the hardest work I’ve ever done and some of the most rewarding.”

Stay up-to-date with Colorado Politics by signing up for our weekly newsletter, The Spot.

The party’s chairwoman, Hannah Goodman, sent the slurs Friday after a commenter privately messaged the party’s Facebook account to criticize what he saw as its “asinine” postings. After an initial exchange that included the commenter sarcastically highlighting the party’s lack of electoral success, Goodman — replying through the party’s official account — defended her party’s achievements and repeatedly referred to the commenter using an anti-gay slur.

She also repeatedly referred to him using a slur for people with intellectual disabilities.

Goodman continued using the slurs after the commenter said he planned to take the messages to the media. The party confirmed in a statement Saturday that Goodman, a congressional candidate last year, sent the messages. In a subsequent email exchange in which the commenter asked party leadership for an apology, Goodman told the commenter that she had authored the messages through the party’s Facebook account.

“There is no such thing as bad press,” Goodman wrote in the Facebook exchange, according to copies of the messages provided to The Post by the party. “Also, I’m the chair of the party. So … no (expletive) given.”

The commenter, who is gay and requested anonymity to share the exchange out of a fear of harassment, said he had never spoken with Goodman or the party previously.

He said Goodman’s initial responses were fine, given the “sassy” nature of his initial message to the party. But he said he was taken aback by how “grossly homophobic” her subsequent responses were since he was just “some rando who tried to get smart with them.”

Goodman did not return a message seeking comment Friday. On Saturday, the party’s executive director, James Wiley, sent The Post a seven-page statement that defended the party’s political relevance, touted the success of a recent social media posting on the party’s Facebook page, and further criticized the commenter.

Wiley referred to a meme produced by Goodman as an “artistic work product” that, Wiley wrote, had prompted the initial criticism from the commenter.

“These judgements were rendered entirely at (the commenter’s) own suggestion without any prompting on the part of the party or its representatives,” Wiley wrote.

Wiley confirmed that Goodman wrote the messages and said he stood by them. He concluded the statement by calling the commenter another slur and quoting a character from the animated show “South Park.”

The party, which was founded in Colorado more than 50 years ago, has long been a minor player in the state’s elections. It has the third-most party affiliations among Colorado voters. Both Goodman and Wiley have run unsuccessfully for Congress.

But the party played a more substantive role in last year’s contests — by not participating in them.

In 2023, the party’s leadership reached an agreement with the Colorado Republican Party to keep Libertarian candidates out of some races, so long as the Republican candidates in those contests signed a pledge to align with Libertarian values. That was thought to improve the Republican candidates’ chances of winning, including in the tight 8th Congressional District race later won by now-U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans.

Stay up-to-date with Colorado Politics by signing up for our weekly newsletter, The Spot.

“I wanted to see my son’s birth,” Finol Marquez told The Denver Post in Spanish through a translator. But his detention made that impossible.

The Post interviewed Finol Marquez, 28, when he was detained at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Aurora and again after he was forcibly returned to Venezuela, seeking to understand the removal process from his perspective.

His account of his processing before deportation included an assertion that, under pressure, he unwittingly signed a document admitting to being a member of Tren de Aragua, a Venezuelan gang, which he said wasn’t true.

When asked on April 3 — the day before he was deported — why Finol Marquez had been detained, ICE said it was because he was an “illegal alien” but declined to share information on where he was being deported to and when he was scheduled to be removed. Later, ICE did not directly respond to questions about the document cited by Finol Marquez.

Finol Marquez’s deportation means his wife Ariagnny, two daughters and one infant son are left in Lakewood, wondering what’s next. Ariagnny, 31, declined to use her last name out of a fear that she’ll be deported, too. She has applied for asylum in the U.S.

“I’m here with my three kids,” she said in Spanish. “I have no financial support.”

The exact numbers of recent detentions and deportations under President Donald Trump’s stepped-up enforcement operations remain unclear due to a lack of federal transparency. Confirmation of the whereabouts of deportees has been piecemeal, with advocacy groups, lawyers and news organizations sporadically releasing names and locations based on available information.

Recently, local immigration assistance organizations and a report by CBS News confirmed that Nixon Azuaje-Perez, a Venezuelan migrant teen living in Colorado, was sent to an El Salvadoran prison. More than 200 migrants — many of them Venezuelan — have been transported to a maximum-security prison in the Central American country.

Federal officials have said they’re criminals and members of Tren de Aragua, but advocates have challenged those claims and questioned authorities’ reliance on tattoos as signifiers of gang affiliation.

In the end, Finol Marquez was returned to Venezuela, which reached an agreement late last month to resume accepting repatriation flights from the U.S.

Arrested in driveway

Years before Finol Marquez’s detainment, he and Ariagnny met because they’re from the same neighborhood in Venezuela’s capital city of Caracas. They’ve been together for almost a decade and wed about two years ago.

After making the four-month journey from their home country to the United States, they arrived in September 2023 and were part of the wave of Venezuelan migrants who traveled to Denver after crossing the border. They spent a year and a half starting new lives in Colorado before Finol Marquez was detained.

He said immigrants had successfully come to the U.S. for college and job opportunities, so he felt welcomed under then-President Joe Biden’s administration.

Back then, “the country was different,” he said.

Ariagnny applied for asylum and submitted her work permit paperwork. Finol Marquez applied for asylum, too, but a judge denied it.

On the morning of March 20, several unmarked vehicles pulled up outside the family’s home, according to videos shared with The Post. Both uniformed and plainclothes ICE agents apprehended Finol Marquez in his driveway.

He said they asked him questions in English, which he didn’t understand, and indicated for him to lift his hooded sweatshirt to examine his tattoos. Finol Marquez said he has a tattoo dedicated to his daughter.

Then, with his car keys and cell phone confiscated, he was put in handcuffs and loaded into a white Jeep, video footage shows. Ariagnny, who was pregnant at the time, looked on.

Finol Marquez confirmed that he had an active deportation order from last year and said it was the result of an unpaid traffic ticket. Without a work permit, he said he didn’t have the money to settle the fine.

Finol Marquez said after he was detained, he was taken to the ICE field office in Centennial where officials asked him to sign paperwork in English. Finol Marquez initially refused, but he said he felt pressured and ultimately signed it.

Later, he received a copy of the documents in Spanish, he said. They included a confession that stated he was a member of Tren de Aragua, he said, adding that other detained Venezuelans had also signed that paperwork.

“I’m a little worried,” he told The Post from the facility.

The Post has spoken with several immigration organizations about the alleged documents, but it was unable to obtain a copy and independently verify the claim. ABC News has also reported claims from detained Venezuelan men that they were compelled to sign confessions about being gang members.

When asked about the allegation, a local ICE spokesperson, who has declined to be quoted by name, did not directly respond. In a statement, the agency said it takes very seriously its commitment to promoting safe, secure, humane environments for those in its custody, and the allegation was not in keeping with ICE policies, practices and standards of care.

The agency previously shared the same statement for another Post story about detainees in Aurora.

At that detention facility, Finol Marquez said Mexicans, Guatemalans and other Venezuelans were among the people held there. He recalled one officer who spoke Spanish and helped him, but he also remembers arguing with another officer over whether he actually came to the U.S. to work.

“In reality, there was a lot of racist officials that treated us badly,” Finol Marquez said in a follow-up interview.

A statement sent by the GEO Group, a private contractor that runs the Aurora facility, said the company strongly rejected allegations of racism, pointing to its zero-tolerance policy with respect to staff misconduct or discrimination.

The statement said that, as a service provider to ICE, the GEO Group is required to follow performance-based national detention standards set by the Department of Homeland Security, including those governing the treatment of people in ICE custody.

The removal process

Finol Marquez’s removal left him and his loved ones with questions throughout the process.

Once he was moved from the Aurora facility, Ariagnny said she went days without hearing from him, and her biggest fear was “that he was taken to El Salvador.”

Finol Marquez said that possibility was also top of mind for him.

Before leaving Colorado, he said he asked an official where they were taking him, and that person responded that he’d find out in Texas.

Finol Marquez said he spent the entire day traveling on a plane — from Colorado to Washington state to Utah to Nevada to Arizona. There, he was given a cot, a pillow, a sandwich and water, he said.

The next morning, officers put Finol Marquez in metal handcuffs, leg irons and a belly chain, he said. Finol Marquez said another Venezuelan who spoke English asked an officer where they were going and was told to Florida, then Texas.

After another day of plane travel, Finol Marquez said he rode in a van for hours through Texas. At the final destination, other buses full of people arrived.

“What’s going to happen to us?” Finol Marquez remembered thinking. “Are they going to send us to El Salvador?”

He said he asked officers and didn’t receive responses. The detainees began boarding a plane: first women, then children, then men, Finol Marquez said. He estimates that more than 300 people were loaded onto the aircraft.

“It was scary because I didn’t know where they were going to take me,” he said.

The Department of Homeland Security didn’t respond to a request for comment about Finol Marquez’s claims of government pressure to sign a Tren de Aragua confession and its lack of communication about what country he was being deported to during the removal process.

On the plane, Finol Marquez said he received a cookie, an apple and water, but his access to a restroom was limited.

After hours in flight, passengers recognized Venezuelan terrain below and started to cheer, Finol Marquez said. American officers removed his chains before landing, he said. He was then processed by Venezuelan officials.

Now that he’s returned to his motherland and been reunited with relatives, Finol Marquez said he’s feeling “good, thanks to God.”

He said his plan was to return to Venezuela eventually. But he didn’t want to do it so soon — or leave his family alone in the process.

“In reality, I didn’t think they would treat me like this,” he said, referring to the U.S. government representatives.

He said he wants his wife and children to come back to Venezuela. Ariagnny is also considering that option.

“To tell the truth, I have a lot of fear,” she said, “and I have thought about going back myself.”

The Colorado Senate unanimously approved a resolution approving its installation Monday. The House also unanimously approved it last week. Installation is planned to begin in 2026.

The statue, by sculptor Gerald Anthony Shippen, will depict the Cheyenne and Arapaho chiefs Black Kettle and Left Hand, as well as a Native American woman with a child. It will be placed on a pedestal on the western steps, where a statue of a Union soldier once stood.

“We end our healing run there, on the steps, and we just look in,” said Otto Braided Hair, a Northern Cheyenne descendant of the massacre and tribal representative.

He referred to the annual 200-mile trek, the Sand Creek Massacre Spiritual Healing Run organized by the Northern and Southern Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes, that goes from the massacre site near Eads to downtown Denver.

“We’re outsiders,” Braided Hair continued. “And today, we are inside. Today, the Cheyenne, Arapaho nations recognize, acknowledge both the unanimous support of the House and Senate. I’m just beside myself. I wish all my relatives and descendants and runners were out here.”

That statue recalls the brutal, unprovoked attack by U.S. Cavalry on a village of Cheyenne and Arapaho people, who had gathered under a United States flag and a white flag of peace, in 1864. The cavalry would kill more than 200 people, mostly women, children and the elderly, and go on to parade mutilated body parts through downtown Denver, according to the resolution.

The bipartisan resolution was sponsored by Sens. Kyle Mullica and Rod Pelton and Reps. Tammy Story and Ty Winter.

“Our hope is this resolution and memorial will be a turning point. A moment when Colorado says we are not afraid to confront our past because we believe in a more just and honest future,” said Mullica, a Thornton Democrat. “To the Cheyenne and Arapaho nations, we see you. We honor you. And we walk forward — not ahead of you, but with you.”

The statue replaces a separate memorial of a Union soldier that previously stood on the pedestal. That statue was toppled during the racial justice protests of 2020. It honored Coloradans who served in the Union Army during the Civil War — but also memorialized the Sand Creek massacre and Col. John M. Chivington, who perpetrated it.

That statue has been on loan to History Colorado since its toppling. It will eventually go to the Department of Military and Veteran Affairs.

Money for the Sand Creek Massacre memorial has been raised in part through the One Earth Future Foundation. The final fundraising push will begin next month through the Sand Creek Massacre Foundation. People who wish to donate may do so at sandcreekmassacrefoundation.org.

Stay up-to-date with Colorado Politics by signing up for our weekly newsletter, The Spot.

On Tuesday, the Thornton Democrat announced her candidacy for the 8th Congressional District race in 2026. She’s seeking a return to the post she held for the first two years of the district’s existence, from 2023 until her loss by a whisker to Republican U.S. Rep. Gabe Evans in November.

Caraveo spoke to The Denver Post ahead of her announcement, the culmination of a decision she has been mulling for several weeks.

“I think that the district is always going to be incredibly competitive, right?” Caraveo said. “So I know this is going to be a tough race. But I think that that very narrow margin of loss is a testament to the fact that people saw that I was taking a moderate and middle-of-the-road path, really keeping in mind what the district wanted me to do.”

The 44-year-old pediatrician and daughter of Mexican immigrants acknowledged that her loss last year came in what “was not an ideal year for Democrats.” She’s staking hope on the likelihood that the political dynamic will be significantly different next year during midterm elections that historically have favored the party out of power.

Her main focus is on potential cuts to Medicaid that could come as part of a budget that President Donald Trump has made clear he wants to see slimmed down. At her former Thornton medical practice, 65% of her patients relied on the program.

“I know that those difficult conversations are taking place and that Gabe Evans doesn’t seem to have an interest in how deeply this is going to affect families,” Caraveo said.

But Caraveo won’t just have Evans to worry about next year.

She will first have to defeat at least one fellow Democrat, state Rep. Manny Rutinel, of Commerce City, in the primary election in June 2026. Rutinel, who launched his campaign in January, announced last week that he had raised more than $1 million since the beginning of the year.

Evans’ campaign responded to Caraveo’s announcement Tuesday morning by pointing to the contested primary.

“Democrats officially have a base problem and are in an all-out primary battle to the left,” spokeswoman Delanie Bomar said. “Meanwhile, Congressman Gabe Evans hit the ground running as he’s working to fix Colorado’s crime, immigration, and energy crises that Manny, Yadira, and their liberal friends created.”

The district has the heaviest concentration of Latinos among Colorado’s eight congressional districts. On immigration — where Caraveo’s position evolved from being heavily critical of federal immigration agencies when she was a state lawmaker to, last summer, lambasting the Biden administration for mismanaging the border — she says the Trump administration’s approach to the issue is wrong.

“They are not focusing on comprehensive reform,” she said. “They are looking at fear mongering and mass deportations, including of people who are here legally.”

During her 100 days out of office, Caraveo traveled to Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. She also grappled with how mental health challenges might play among voters in a new bid for Congress.

Those challenges led to several dark episodes last year in which Caraveo almost took her life with a near-overdose of sleeping pills and pain medication. She spoke publicly about her struggles last summer in an attempt to destigmatize the issue of mental health, but she has provided more details in recent interviews.

After a stint at Walter Reed Army Medical Center early last year to get treatment, Caraveo said she is feeling much better and on track to devote herself to public service again.

“Now that I’m getting that proper treatment and that I’m on the right medications — that I’ve really taken care of issues that I had been ignoring for a long time because I was putting other people ahead of myself — I’m in an even better position to represent this district,” she said.

She also said: “As long as you seek help, you can get better — you can still do hard things. It shouldn’t be held against you that you have these struggles.”

The 8th District, which stretches from Denver’s northern suburbs to Berthoud and Greeley in the north, was drawn by the state’s redistricting commission after the 2020 census to be the most politically competitive in Colorado. In 2022, Caraveo barely edged out Republican state Sen. Barb Kirkmeyer by fewer than 2,000 votes out of more than 236,000 cast.

Fast-forward two years, and Evans took the contest against Caraveo by fewer than 2,500 votes out of more than 333,000 cast.

The Cook Political Report once again positions the 8th District race as a toss-up in 2026 — one of only 18 races nationwide with such a ranking — while the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia includes the race among 19 with toss-up status in its rankings.

Get more Colorado news by signing up for our daily Your Morning Dozen email newsletter.