Colorado’s second-highest court ruled on Thursday that counties lack standing to challenge a 2023 state law that restricts their ability to contract with the federal government or private entities for immigration detention.

A three-judge Court of Appeals panel agreed with a trial judge that the Colorado Constitution provides the legislature with broad power to enact laws, subject only to the limitations of the state or federal constitutions.

Douglas County, which brought the appeal, “essentially argues that it is an autonomous legal entity that is allowed to determine — free from the General Assembly’s oversight — what types of services it may provide, including whether it may provide immigration detention services to the federal government,” wrote Judge Timothy J. Schutz in the April 9 opinion. “The County is mistaken.”

The lawsuit, originally filed in 2024, included Douglas, El Paso, Mesa, Rio Blanco, Elbert, and Garfield counties as plaintiffs, as well as their elected sheriffs. The complaint also sought to declare two laws unconstitutional:

• A 2019 measure prohibiting law enforcement from detaining someone solely on the basis of an administrative request from federal immigration authorities
• A 2023 law restricting the types of contracts that local governments can enter into with the federal government or private entities for immigration detention purposes

Broadly, the laws fell into the category of “sanctuary” policies that limit or prohibit local cooperation with federal immigration authorities. Recently, a federal judge in Colorado joined his counterparts elsewhere in concluding the federal government cannot coerce states into assisting with immigration enforcement, although voluntary cooperation remains on the table.

The question in the counties’ lawsuit, in contrast, is whether the state legislature could bar them from voluntarily assisting the federal government.

The Colorado Constitution, in part, provides that nothing in it prohibits the state “or any of its political subdivisions from cooperating or contracting with one another or with the government of the United States to provide any function, service, or facility lawfully authorized.”

But in a December 2024 order, then-Denver District Court Judge David H. Goldberg concluded the constitutional language did not preclude the legislature from defining what is “lawfully authorized.”

“Because the federal government is prohibited from mandating that a state complies with a federal civil immigration detainer request, Defendant is free to determine the extent, if at all, the State will comply with civil immigration detainer requests and whether the State will enter into or renew immigration detainment agreements,” he wrote.

Goldberg dismissed the lawsuit, finding the counties lacked standing to challenge the laws.

Only Douglas County and its sheriff chose to appeal, focusing only on the 2023 law involving detention-related contracts.

“The Plaintiffs have sufficiently alleged that they have suffered an injury in fact due to the bill denying the Plaintiffs’ right to freely and voluntarily contract with the Federal Government,” argued the county’s attorneys.

The Court of Appeals panel agreed with Goldberg that local governments do not have an “unfettered” right to enter into contracts with the federal government if the legislature has provided otherwise.

“Equally important, the County’s argument fails to recognize the state’s broad power to determine what services a county may perform and what services it may not,” wrote Schutz.

The case is Douglas County et al. v. State of Colorado.