The day cops say an illegal immigrant disfigured and killed young college student Laken Riley is the day radicalized Democrats killed a bill written to help prevent such crimes in Colorado. The so-called “kill committee” – State, Veterans, & Military Affairs – favored tying the hands of law enforcement and easing the ability of foreign criminals to come here and remain illegally.

Do not be shocked. This is the same committee – under the same leadership within the same month – that gleefully rejected a proposal to increase penalties for adult rapists who prey on minors trafficked to meet their perverse demands.

Absolute power corrupts. Controlling the governor’s office and all other statewide offices, both U.S. Senate seats, the state House and Senate, and 6 of nine U.S. House districts, Democrats have absolute power checked by nothing. With it, they abuse the public – including vulnerable children increasingly traded in Colorado by cartels and other trafficking rings for the pleasure of local deviants.

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About the time law enforcement in Georgia found Riley’s mutilated body on Feb. 22, the House “kill committee” killed – technically “postponed indefinitely” – consideration of House Bill 1128.

The bill would have moved us in the direction of a policy enacted in 2006 and signed by then-Republican Gov. Bill Owens. It forbade local laws that keep police from working with federal immigration authorities.

Democrats repealed the law in 2013 and went the opposite direction. Their law – signed by then Democratic Gov. John Hickenlooper – prohibits any probation official from cooperating with federal immigration authorities. It prevents state and local governments from contracting for immigration detention services.

The state’s sanctuary policies allow politicians of Denver, Boulder and other communities to prohibit local law enforcement from cooperating with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, ICE. So much for equal protection. They can work with the FBI, the CIA, the DEA and the EPA. Just not ICE. They brake the law by letting ICE officers onto city property.

House Bill 1128 would have repealed the 2013 enforcement obstacles. Sanctuary policies, such as Colorado’s, may be complicit in Riley’s murder.

The suspect, Jose Antonio Ibarra, migrated illegally to the United States from Venezuela in September of 2022. Federal authorities caught and released him into the United States, based on the federal sanctuary policies of President Joe Biden – the man who stopped border wall construction and welcomed illegal immigration.

After Biden’s policies allowed Ibarra into Texas, he bused to New York City. There, authorities arrested him for endangering a child. In keeping with sanctuary policies, New York released him without contacting immigration authorities.

Ibarra left New York to join his brother in Athens, Georgia. A month later, local cops arrested the two on suspicion of theft. Arguably a sanctuary city, Athens let him go without checking his immigration status. They let his brother go on a DUI charge without checking immigration status.

Since January of 2023, domestic courts have obtained 26,197 convictions for serious crimes committed by illegal immigrants. They include drug trafficking, sexual offenses, weapons violations and murder.

Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro Moros, the Communist Party of China and other far-left regimes use our open border as a dumping ground for criminals they don’t want. Here, the discarded criminals can have their way with kind and trusting Americans.

House Bill 1128 had no nexus to judging or oppressing typical illegal immigrants who come here to work. It would have allowed police to cooperate with federal authorities to contend with criminal suspects, here illegally, before they harm or kill.

Blame extreme-left Democrats the next time police release a dangerous suspect who subsequently rapes or kills in Colorado without permission to be in the country. It’s not if. It’s when.

Denver Gazette Editorial Board