Colorado Governor Questions Use of National Guard for Immigration Enforcement

Photo: A Texas National Guardsman observes as Border Patrol agents pat down migrants who have surrendered themselves for processing, May 10, 2023. (Photo by Corrie Boudreaux for Source NM)

This story by Sara Wilson appeared on Colorado Newsline on May 19, 2025.

Colorado Governor Jared Polis has “deep reservations” about a plan for the Department of Homeland Security to use National Guard members to help with federal immigration enforcement.

The plan, first reported by the New York Times on Thursday, would pull in 20,000 members to increase enforcement capacity amid the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts. Governors would be asked for National Guard troops to help with the detention and deportation of immigrants without legal status, though it is not clear what specific role troops would serve, according to NPR. The plan is being reviewed by Department of Defense lawyers.

“Our national guard members play an important role in protecting our state at home and abroad and the Governor would have deep reservations about pulling guard members away from core functions at a time when resources are being cut in these critical areas, further straining resources needed for public safety by diverting resources to a federal responsibility,” Polis spokesperson Shelby Wieman wrote in an email. “Gov. Polis calls on Congress to do their part and pass comprehensive immigration reform that secures our border, provides adequate personnel for border and interior enforcement so that they don’t need to take away national guard units from the states, and creates a pathway to citizenship.”

The Colorado Army National Guard and Colorado Air National Guard comprises about 5,500 people who serve part-time under the governor’s direction. Often, they respond to disasters in the state.

A spokesperson for the Colorado National Guard said it has not received any communication about a plan to ask members to volunteer for immigration enforcement.

Trump administration officials such as Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy, have suggested that that National Guard troops from Republican-led states could be deployed in states, like Colorado, governed by Democrats. Democratic lawmakers in the Colorado Legislature passed a sweeping immigrant rights bill during the legislative session this year. It included a provision that would ban military units from another state from entering Colorado without the governor’s permission.

“Any time we have someone else’s National Guard that wants to come into this state, agreements happen. The governor’s office has asked for support in this area,” Rep. Lorena Garcia, an Adams County Democrat and the bill’s sponsor, said during floor debate on May 2. “We have seen buses come forward without any warning from Texas. Who’s to say that (Texas) Gov. (Greg) Abbott wouldn’t just throw his National Guard straight into Colorado because they decided to do immigration enforcement here?”

A Polis spokesperson in November after Trump’s election told Newsline in a statement, “It would be a violation of state sovereignty for another state to send National Guard troops without a request from the state.”

Many of the approximately 40,000 migrants who arrived in Denver since 2022 came on buses sent from Texas at Abbott’s direction. In February, Abbott gave the Texas National Guard the authority to make immigration arrests.

Polis has not signed that immigration bill, Senate Bill 25-276, into law. Though it would bar other states from sending their National Guard troops into Colorado, it would do little if Trump federalized the National Guard to perform law enforcement activities under the Insurrection Act, which was last invoked in 1992 during the Los Angeles riots after the police beating of Rodney King.

Bill sponsor state Sen. Mike Weissman, an Aurora Democrat, told Newsline that the provision in question is comparable to laws in other states, including Texas.

“So it depends exactly what Trump, and potentially Trump-allied governors, proceed to do,” he wrote in an email. “The mere fact that Trump is trying to corral guards members for his anti-immigrant efforts is yet another sign of the rapid disintegration of norms and precedents in this country.”