What Trump’s second term means for Colorado immigrants, public lands, abortion access and Space Command

As nationwide Republicans celebrated the election of Donald Trump as president final week, the progressives and Democrats who lead Colorado and form its insurance policies questioned — and started planning for — what a second Trump administration would imply for the steady-blue Centennial State.

Within the days since Trump gained, Colorado officers have cautioned {that a} sea of unknowns stay. It’s unclear whom he’ll select for his cupboard or how carefully he’ll observe the Republican-drafted Venture 2025, a information for a second Trump administration from which the president-elect sought to distance himself in the course of the marketing campaign.

Nonetheless, state legislators and coverage advocates have raised considerations about how potential swings on key nationwide points, like new abortion restrictions or the mass deportations Trump mentioned he would begin in Aurora, would possibly wash over a Democratic state that’s positioned itself as basically against a lot of Trump’s positions. On a number of fronts, they mentioned, they anticipate Trump to behave extra shortly and aggressively to impose his agenda in a second time period.

“Clearly, this (new administration) goes to be tougher,” Colorado Legal professional Normal Phil Weiser mentioned. “It’s one thing we’re ready for, one thing we’ve completed earlier than — and we’ll do it once more.”

Uniquely Colorado considerations — like maintaining the beforehand contested headquarters of the U.S. Area Command and defending the state’s intensive public lands — instantly really feel imperiled. Democratic state lawmakers, who final week maintained their giant majorities amid a nationwide political shift to the precise, braced to behave as a bulwark in opposition to federal deregulation and conservative U.S. Supreme Court docket choices.

Right here’s how the second Trump time period, set to start Jan. 20, might impression Colorado’s immigrants, public lands, abortion entry, statehouse agenda and the placement of Area Command.

Immigration actions seemingly

In October, Trump traveled to Colorado and introduced his plans to launch “Operation Aurora,” which might use a virtually 230-year-old legislation to deport undocumented immigrants with gang ties. He’s pledged to undertake a broader mass deportation operation to expel the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants within the nation — beginning with Aurora.

Colorado is dwelling to roughly 156,000 undocumented immigrants, in response to a July examine by the Institute on Taxation and Financial Coverage. Denver Mayor Mike Johnston advised The Denver Submit final week that his metropolis would “not take part” in Trump’s mass deportation plans.

State legislation prohibits native legislation enforcement from holding somebody in jail past their launch date solely on a “detainer” request, which is utilized by federal authorities to make sure they’re notified earlier than an undocumented immigrant is set free.

Doug Friednash, who was chief of workers to then-Gov. John Hickenlooper till late 2017, predicted that immigration enforcement and deportations could be among the many first authorized fights that Colorado has with the brand new Trump administration.

Colorado might grow to be “floor zero” for battles over Trump’s plans, he mentioned.

“What occurs when Trump decides on Operation Aurora, or that we’re going to start out deportation, and he seems to be to the state? Not simply with (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement), however he seems to be to the Nationwide Guard to implement that. What does Gov. (Jared) Polis do, and what does the state do?” mentioned Friednash, a lawyer who’s now on the legislation and lobbying agency Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck.

By a spokeswoman, Polis, who made frequent nationwide TV appearances in the course of the marketing campaign in help of Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, declined requests for interviews about Trump’s potential impression on immigration and different points within the state.

U.S. Rep. Jason Crow, a Democrat who represents Aurora in Congress, was defiant.

“If (Trump) desires to hold out mass deportations and break up households and devastate our economic system,” Crow mentioned Thursday, “then we’ll in fact resist that with all of our drive.”

Trump’s win introduced disbelief and uncertainty to Colorado’s immigrant neighborhood, mentioned Mekela Goehring, the chief director of the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Community. It additionally underscored the necessity for the group’s mission of offering free authorized and social companies to immigrant youngsters and to adults in immigration detention, she mentioned.

She expects new actions according to immigration insurance policies applied by Trump throughout his first time period.

“Now, probably the most vital element is making certain there are legal professionals within the system so there may be some accountability and a test of due course of,” Goehring mentioned. “Separating youngsters from their dad and mom (or) forcing folks to be in a prison-like setting whereas navigating immigration proceedings is extremely dangerous to neighborhood members.”

Pivot on public lands insurance policies

“Drill, child, drill” has served as one in every of Trump’s clearest and most constant coverage messages — and it’s a coverage that may play out throughout a few of the 24 million acres of federally managed public lands that cowl almost a 3rd of Colorado.

Trump’s victory is a boon to grease and gasoline producers within the West, mentioned Kathleen Sgamma, president of Western Power Alliance, a Denver-based commerce group.

“We’ll be working with the brand new administration to reassess a few of the guidelines, a few of which Western Power Alliance is suing on,” mentioned Sgamma, who helped write the part on power coverage in Venture 2025’s plan for the Division of the Inside. “We’ll be seeking to transfer ahead on leasing, which the Biden-Harris administration has all however stopped” on federal land.

Sgamma hoped the brand new administration would reassess Nationwide Environmental Coverage Act evaluate processes that she mentioned had slowed oil and gasoline improvement.

She additionally expressed hope that the administration would roll again the Bureau of Land Administration’s Public Lands Rule, which made conservation an equally necessary use of BLM land as grazing, recreation, power improvement and different makes use of. The administration also needs to reverse a Biden administration change that elevated BLM land-leasing prices for power improvement, she mentioned.

The BLM manages 8.3 million acres of land in Colorado, totally on the Western Slope. Presidential appointees in Trump’s first administration moved the BLM headquarters to Grand Junction, a transfer that Biden later reversed.

A second Trump administration will seemingly act quicker and be higher ready to roll again environmental rules than its earlier iteration, mentioned Aaron Weiss, deputy director of the Heart for Western Priorities, a Denver-based conservation and advocacy group.

“I believe it’s a must to contemplate each conservation effort over the past three many years to be in danger, as a result of they don’t see any worth in seeing public lands protected for recreation, fishing or searching,” he mentioned. “They take a look at public lands as sources of revenue.”

Weiss expects the Trump administration will open up extra U.S. Forest Service land — which covers 11.3 million acres in Colorado — to logging below the guise of wildfire mitigation.

“That simply means: If we chop down all of the timber, they will’t burn,” he mentioned.

Nationwide monuments, too, might come below scrutiny by Trump’s administration — particularly these created by Biden, Weiss mentioned. In his final administration, Trump slashed the dimensions of Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase Escalante nationwide monuments.

Biden created one new monument in Colorado: the 53,804-acre Camp Hale-Continental Divide Nationwide Monument north of Leadville. In western Colorado, a coalition of rafters and environmentalists for months have urged Biden to create a brand new monument alongside the Dolores River — an effort that might face a a lot steeper uphill climb below Trump.

Colorado will depend on tens of millions of {dollars} in federal funding for environmental safety work, so cuts to regulatory companies just like the Environmental Safety Company might have downstream ripple results right here, mentioned Phaedra Pezzullo. She is a professor and co-director of the graduate certificates of environmental justice on the College of Colorado Boulder.

Trump pledged throughout his marketing campaign to cease any spending from the Inflation Discount Act, which Biden’s administration referred to as “the biggest funding in clear power and local weather motion ever.” However Trump could discover that hampering the legislation — which has poured greater than $1.7 billion into Colorado initiatives — is politically unpopular, Pezzullo mentioned.

“I believe loads of issues have been mentioned bombastically on the marketing campaign path, so we’ll see when the rubber hits the highway,” she mentioned.

Additionally unclear is the mark Trump would possibly make on spending and grants below the Infrastructure Funding and Jobs Act, which native transportation leaders have begun tapping for the Entrance Vary Passenger Rail initiative. Federal officers have designated it as a precedence transit hall.

Colorado leaders and lawmakers’ sturdy bipartisan help of environmental safety for air, water and land gave Pezzullo hope that state coverage might function a buffer to potential federal deregulation.

“I might really feel rather more anxious if I lived in a state that didn’t have the management we had on the surroundings,” she mentioned.

Area Command’s future

Within the waning days of the primary Trump administration in January 2021, the Pentagon introduced that U.S. Area Command would transfer from its interim dwelling in Colorado Springs to a everlasting headquarters in Huntsville, Alabama.

Then, in summer season 2023, the Biden administration reversed that call and stored the headquarters in Colorado, the place it achieved operational readiness late final 12 months.

Now, Area Command could also be set to maneuver once more. Politico reported Wednesday that Trump is “anticipated” to maneuver Area Command again to Huntsville.

U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers, an Alabama Republican and the chair of the Home Armed Providers Committee, advised Politico that Trump would implement what two U.S. Air Power secretaries had decided: “That’s, Huntsville gained the competitors … and that’s the place it ought to be and that’s the place he’s going to construct it.”

Ought to that occur, it might be the most recent flip in a collection of ping-ponging choices affecting the newly reestablished navy command. Such a transfer would additionally jeopardize greater than 1,000 jobs and $1 billion in annual financial advantages in Colorado, in response to 2023 estimates from the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce.

Any renewed effort to maneuver Area Command from Colorado would spark a united and bipartisan struggle from Colorado’s congressional delegation. U.S. Rep.-elect Jeff Crank, a Republican who will characterize Colorado Springs in Congress, advised The Submit he hadn’t but dug into Trump’s potential impression on Area Command. However he mentioned he would defend its presence in his new district.

“Clearly, I consider that if it’s right down to navy worth, (then) Colorado is the place for it to be,” Crank mentioned Wednesday. “And I believe that steady research have proven that. If it’s based mostly on political choices, it might transfer elsewhere. However I believe it makes eminent sense to maintain it right here.”

Crow mentioned he would “resist any try” to maneuver the command’s headquarters, although he mentioned it wasn’t but clear if that would occur.

“With Donald Trump, you by no means know,” he mentioned. “He modifies his positions and his stance on points by the day, and generally by the hour. If he desires to construct out the Area Power and Area Command and have it meet the nationwide safety second and our threats, then he’ll maintain it right here.”

Defending abortion entry

Trump’s victory dampened celebrations by abortion-rights advocates in Colorado who, in the identical election, ran a profitable poll initiative to put the precise to abortion within the state structure.

“Although folks thought we couldn’t do it — that we have been being too daring — we caught to our place as a result of we all know it’s the precise factor to do,” mentioned Dusti Gurule, CEO of the Colorado Group for Latina Alternative and Reproductive Rights. “Now it’s much more vital that we did what we did.”

Though Trump’s stance on abortion has repeatedly shifted, he mentioned within the closing levels of his marketing campaign that he would favor permitting states to resolve whether or not abortion ought to be authorized.

If he and Congress abide by that place, Colorado can have a few of the strongest abortion protections within the nation due to the success of Modification 79, mentioned Karen Middleton, the president of Cobalt Advocates, an abortion-rights group. However abortion suppliers and advocates are nonetheless making ready for regulatory modifications that would impression entry and choices right here.

“Sure, we’re anxious, however we’re additionally ready,” Gurule mentioned. “We’re not going to cease combating.”

Middleton mentioned advocates in Colorado deliberate to pursue state laws to guard in opposition to additional challenges to a federal legislation that requires emergency rooms to offer care to stabilize sufferers, together with emergency abortions.

The passage of Modification 79 additionally might enable extra Coloradans to obtain insurance coverage protection for abortion, together with state workers and individuals who use Medicaid. That can unlock capability for outdoor suppliers to take care of folks coming to Colorado for companies from states the place abortion is banned, mentioned Nicole Hensel, govt director of New Period Colorado.

Different challenges to abortion rights and entry might come by the revival of a century-old federal legislation, the Comstock Act, that, if enforced, would make it unlawful to mail or obtain medical gear utilized in abortion procedures, mentioned Jack Teter, regional director of presidency affairs for Deliberate Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains.

Weiser, the state’s lawyer normal, speculated about doable Trump administrative motion to restrict entry to the abortion drug mifepristone. Any such effort, Weiser mentioned, would result in authorized challenges from his workplace. Remedy abortion utilizing medicine like mifepristone accounted for 63% of all abortions in 2023, making it an more and more widespread abortion methodology.

Regardless of the potential challenges in coming years, Deliberate Parenthood’s suppliers will maintain working to take care of Coloradans and other people from all around the nation, Teter mentioned.

“We’ve been right here for 100 years,” he mentioned, “and we’re not going wherever.”

How will the statehouse react?

Within the days after Trump’s victory, Colorado legislators have been nonetheless sifting by what a second Trump administration might imply for the state — and the way that might have an effect on their work and the very posture of state authorities.

Home Speaker Julie McCluskie, whose Democratic caucus defended almost all of its giant majority in final week’s election, cautioned that it was too early to find out how the legislature could reply to a Trump administration. Affordability stays a prime concern for voters, she mentioned, and that would be the focus for legislators in 2025.

Nonetheless, she mentioned, “there’s some points that I believe are clearly on the horizon for us. I might level to immigration (and) the statements that Trump made when he visited Colorado — that (his) mass deportation effort would begin right here. That’s one thing the place I believe we’ll reply and react.”

Different Democratic legislators mentioned Trump’s victory would change their agenda in 2025 and past, even when the precise contours of a second Trump time period stay unclear.

“It can impression the legislative agenda. It can,” mentioned Denver Democratic Rep. Jennifer Bacon. “I don’t know to what extent. But when it did (lately), once we have been coping with the residuals of his (first) time period — think about that we’re in it.”

She famous the probability that Trump will fill one other Supreme Court docket seat, after his earlier appointees joined courtroom majorities that “undid administrative legislation, they undid reproductive rights, and I do consider they’re going to come back for civil rights, in relation to legislation enforcement.”

Federal motion has sparked state legislative modifications previously, amongst them the “residuals” Bacon referred to: Legislators enshrined Miranda rights for arrestees in state legislation after a Supreme Court docket choice undercut them. The legislature handed sweeping abortion protections forward of the Dobbs choice that overturned Roe v. Wade. And considerations about the way forward for marriage equality spurred the legislature to refer a profitable poll measure eradicating defunct language banning same-sex marriage from the state structure.