Leave it to the ACLU and a sympathetic federal judge to fret over the arrests of illegal immigrants in Colorado — because the agents who made the busts didn’t show evidence in advance that the suspects posed a flight risk.

Presumably, the fact those arrested were in this country illegally to begin with — and likely would cut and run if approached by law enforcement — wasn’t evidence enough.

Hence, last week’s preliminary injunction granted by U.S. District Judge R. Brooke Jackson in Denver, setting a high bar and an absurdly unrealistic standard for federal law officers who attempt to arrest illegal immigrants without a warrant.

The upshot of the ruling by Jackson, an Obama administration appointee, is that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents will have to be able to demonstrate they had probable cause to believe a suspect is in the country illegally and likely to flee before they can carry out an arrest without first securing a warrant. That’s right — for each of the 200,000 illegal immigrants believed to be in Colorado, out of an estimated 14 million nationwide.

As reported by The Gazette, Jackson extended the ruling statewide.

Under Jackson’s order, immigration officers will have to document evidence of a suspect’s flight risk, as well as any offsetting ties to the community, before making an arrest. Apparently, it might not even matter if suspects are in violation of the law simply by being in the U.S.; if they’re married and, maybe, have kids, a court could deem there to be no risk of flight. So, any resulting arrest would be ruled illegal and the suspect likely released.

All of which, of course, should cheer open-borders activists from Colorado’s political fringe. It’s another attempt to sabotage the Trump administration’s welcome and overdue crackdown on illegal immigration. 

The implications could be far reaching. It could curb the sweeps by immigration authorities in Colorado and across the country that have by all accounts put the chill on illegal crossings of the southern U.S. border. If agents cannot act fast when they enter residential or commercial spaces where they know illegal immigrants are likely to be, the crackdown will be in vain.

And never mind the lucky break it gives the criminal element — especially organized crime — within Colorado’s illegal immigrant population. It was ICE’s surprise sweeps on apartment buildings overrun by Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gangsters that broke up crime rings in Colorado’s largest metro area. Overlords of foreign drug cartels no doubt will take notice and brief their operatives on their newfound “rights” in Colorado.

Undermining law enforcement at the expense of public safety is of course what the American Civil Liberties Union does best. Getting a court date in front of a judge like Jackson — who who tied the hands of Denver cops in responding to days of street riots in 2020 — was a fantasy come true for the ACLU. 

Jackson’s order also is sure to hearten Colorado’s out-of-touch political establishment. Our legislature has essentially criminalized cooperation between local law enforcement and their federal counterparts on immigration control. Colorado’s largest city spent some $80 million housing, feeding and providing health care to illegal immigrants from Venezuela. 

But it’s grim news for the rank-and-file Colorado residents who have been forced to pick up the tab and weather the crime that has accompanied the wave of illegal immigration.

Our hope is federal immigration authorities will find ways to comply with the new constraints while carrying our their primary mission. 

The court didn’t hand down justice last week; it handed illegal immigrants a get-out-of-jail pass. And it reassured the next wave of illegal immigrants they have little to fear in Colorado.