Riding along with CSP's immigration unit

GOLDEN - It's just another day on patrol for Colorado State Patrol Trooper Trent Hischke.

Hischke has been with Colorado State Patrol for several years, but last year he decided to expand his duties and join CSP's Immigration Enforcement Unit.

"We're very focused on looking for the human trafficking and the smuggling aspect of people through Colorado," Hischke said. "Often times it's a larger vehicle full of individuals that we feel that after talking to the occupants, we're interviewing and investigating if it is going to be a human trafficking or smuggling situation."

The 2006 legislative session of the Colorado General Assembly created the unit. Nineteen troopers and three sergeants received special Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) training and were sworn in May 2007.

CSP says it doesn't target specific individuals or vehicles.

"They go out like any other state trooper, patrol our highways, look for aggressive drivers, looking for other traffic violations that are likely to cause injury and fatal crashes, they enforce human trafficking and human smuggling laws through routine traffic enforcement duties," said Sgt. John Hahn, CSP spokesperson. "The issue of human smuggling and trafficking is a statewide issue that we're facing, so it stands the reason why a statewide agency is involved."

CSP says the unit has federal authority to detain and file charges for violations of U.S. immigration laws.

According to the agency statistics, in the last year it investigated 40 cases of human smuggling, arresting 42 people.

Troopers also detained 183 people they call "criminal aliens," who are people with criminal history in the U.S., as well as 21 aggravated felons.

It also arrested 782 undocumented foreign nationals.

CSP says of the cases it investigated, 33 have been filed in state district court and seven for federal prosecution.

Minsun Gi, executive director of El Centro Humanitario, or Humanitarian Center for Workers, a group that defends the rights of immigrant day laborers, says the CSP's Immigration Enforcement Unit targets one group of people.

She's worried it will allow officers to ask any person of color about their immigration status, opening the door for them to be arrested.

"It's very, very difficult to just address that they're only asking for any trafficking issue," she said. "It's very, very dangerous. I don't think it's a right way to go about it."

Carl Rusnok, a spokesperson for ICE, says ICE partners with 59 other law enforcement agencies across the country to apprehend "criminal aliens."

"We're targeting criminal aliens especially," Rusnok said. "That's exactly who we're targeting. The whole idea is make communities safer. Anyone who's in this country illegally runs the risk of being located, identified and arrested and ultimately deported."
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