Colorado Made Its Attorneys Choose Between Their License and a Federal Agency

In early 2026, Colorado attorneys accessing the state's mandatory e-filing system encountered a certification requirement, documented by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, that read: they "will not use or disclose personal identifying information obtained from the database or automated network for the purpose of investigating for, participating in, cooperating with, or assisting in federal immigration enforcement."

The e-filing system is not optional. Every attorney practicing in Colorado state courts must use it. And for several months, using it required a sworn statement — under penalty of perjury — not to cooperate with a federal law enforcement agency.

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The requirement emerged from Colorado's 2021 data-sharing restriction law, which limited third-party access to state agency records. A 2025 expansion extended those restrictions to the judicial and legislative branches. The e-filing certification was the mechanism by which the court system applied that expansion to private attorneys.

The stated rationale is coherent. Many people appearing in state courts have immigration status that could expose them to federal action. Court systems have a legitimate interest in ensuring that litigants aren't deterred from pursuing valid legal claims by fear that their personal information will flow directly into federal enforcement databases.

That concern is real. But the certification went further than data protection. An attorney in a landlord-tenant case, a custody proceeding, a small claims dispute — any state court matter — had to swear not to assist in federal immigration enforcement as a condition of system access. Not that they would protect nonpublic litigant data. Not that they would follow professional responsibility rules. That they would not cooperate with ICE, categorically.

Federal immigration enforcement is lawful. Attorneys sometimes have clients with legal obligations to federal authorities. The certification made no exceptions for those situations.

Whether that constitutes unconstitutional compelled speech under the First Amendment is a question legal scholars dispute — the doctrine governing government-mandated viewpoint pledges as a condition of accessing public infrastructure is unsettled enough that reasonable people land differently on it. What is less disputed is the structural oddity: mandatory access to court infrastructure conditioned on a pledge of non-cooperation with a specific federal agency.

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On April 13, 2026, House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan and Immigration Subcommittee Chairman Tom McClintock sent a letter to Colorado State Court Administrator Steven Vasconcellos demanding documents and internal communications about the requirement, according to the House Judiciary Committee's published correspondence. FIRE had flagged the certification publicly. Colorado moved.

Governor Jared Polis signed House Bill 26-1276 on June 5, 2026. The law clarified that state information-sharing restrictions do not apply to private attorneys accessing the e-filing system. The bill also includes provisions for state inspections of immigration detention facilities, employer liability extensions, and POST Board training requirements — a broader package that reflects Colorado's consistent posture of limiting cooperation with federal immigration enforcement where state law permits. The attorney certification repeal is one piece of that larger statute.

Colorado's stated position, per FIRE's account of the reversal, was that the requirement had been a mistake — that the 2025 expansion was never intended to reach private attorneys using court access tools, only state employees. A clarification, not a retreat.

That framing is possible. It is also the framing of an institution that implemented the requirement, enforced it for months, and reversed course only after a congressional letter and a public legal organization applied pressure. No statement from Colorado courts, the governor's office, or the judicial branch has been published explaining when the error was identified internally or what review process caught it.

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The reversal resolves the immediate problem for attorneys. It does not resolve the underlying question: how far can a state condition access to mandatory government infrastructure on a pledge of non-cooperation with a federal agency? That question has no clean answer in current doctrine, and HB 26-1276 does not attempt one — it sidesteps it by reclassifying the attorneys as outside the law's scope.

The next version of this problem will probably look different. The structure that produced it has not changed.