Colorado Attorney General sues Mesa Co. deputy for illegally sharing info with ICE, leading to arrest of U of U student

DENVER, Colorado (ABC4) — The Colorado Attorney General (AG) filed a lawsuit against the Mesa County sheriff’s deputy who illegally shared information with federal immigration officials that led to the detainment of a 19-year-old University of Utah Student last month.

On Tuesday, Colorado AG Phil Weiser filed the lawsuit against Deputy Alexander Zwinck, alleging that he violated Colorado law by working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials to detain Caroline Dias Goncalves, the 19-year-old University of Utah student who was arrested by ICE following a routine traffic stop.

On June 5, Caroline Dias Goncalves was stopped by Deputy Zwinck for following too close to a semi-truck on I-70 near Loma, Colorado. She cooperated with the deputy and was allowed to continue on her road trip about 20 minutes later.

According to a news release about the lawsuit, Deputy Zwinck immediately uploaded her personal information to a Signal group chat that included federal immigration officers. Allegedly, he was told that she had no criminal history but was a Brazilian national on an expired visa. Instead of ending communications because there were no criminal matters to follow up on, he assisted ICE officers in detaining Dias Goncalves.

According to the state investigation, Zwinck provided his location to the federal immigration officers in the chat and then stalled Dias Goncalves for at least five minutes, asking her about her national origin, her accent, and where she was from.

When she left, he again messaged the chat and provided federal immigration officers with a description of her car, her license plate number, and the direction she was traveling.

Allegedly, after ICE officials took Dias Goncalves into custody, Zwinck messaged to the chat, “Nice work.”

State law specifies that Colorado law enforcement officers are dedicated to enforcing Colorado law and do not do the work of the federal government to enforce immigration law. In this case, the driver was detained by immigration authorities because of actions by Colorado law enforcement despite the absence of any criminal activity on her part. Her detention for over two weeks is directly due to this violation of Colorado’s laws. Because of this action, we are making clear that Colorado law enforcement’s role is to advance public safety, not take on the responsibility of doing the work of federal immigration enforcement.”
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser

According to the lawsuit, Deputy Zwinck also assisted ICE officials “in violation of Colorado law” on other occasions. He allegedly continued to do this despite receiving an email in January from the sheriff’s office operations division chief advising that Colorado law restricts their ability to enforce immigration issues and cooperate with ICE.

On June 6, after Dias Goncalves was detained, another officer in the chat commented that he would get “ERO interdictor of the year.” ERO stands for Enforcement and Removal Operations, and it is a section of ICE.

The Mesa County Sheriff’s Office told ABC4.com that they are within one week of completing the administrative investigation into the incident.

“We are committed to transparency in this process,” said Molly Casey, the public information officer for the sheriff’s office. She also said that they will release a formal statement once the investigation is complete.

Previously, the Sheriff’s Office stated that they were unaware that the Signal chat was used for the purpose of ICE enforcement, and since then, they have removed all officers from that chat. The chat was created for the purpose of stopping illegal drug trafficking in Colorado, they said.

According to Colorado law C.R.S. §§ 24-74-103(1), 24-74-104(1), local agencies like police departments and sheriff’s offices are prohibited from disclosing personal identifying information for the purpose of “investigating for, participating in, cooperating with, or assisting federal immigration enforcement.”