GREELEY, Colo. (AP) — Like many Donald Trump voters, Miranda Niedermeier isn’t opposed to immigration enforcement. She was encouraged by the Republican president’s initial moves in his second term that she saw as targeting immigrants who were in the United States illegally and had committed crimes.
But Niedermeier, 35, has grown increasingly disenchanted with Trump. Never more so than in recent weeks, when federal immigration officers killed two US citizens during Trump’s debacle in Minneapolis.
“In the beginning, they were taking in criminals, but now they’re removing people from immigration proceedings, looking for the smallest traffic offense” to deport someone, Niedermeier said. She said she is appalled because the administration’s approach is not Christian.
“It shouldn’t be life and death,” she said. “We’re not a third world country. What the hell is going on?”
Trump’s immigration push in Minnesota and the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti echoed through the farms, oil and gas rigs and shopping centers of Colorado’s 8th Congressional District, a volatile seat that stretches northeast of Denver. The month-long unrest in Minnesota has hardened the political views of some in the US House district while causing others to reconsider their own views.
“They should cool down on immigration,” said Edgar Cautle, a 30-year-old Mexican-American oilfield worker who said he is a Trump fan but is increasingly troubled by images of immigration agents detaining children and separating families. “He makes people dislike him.”
Republican congressman wants ICE to focus on criminals
If such sentiments persist into the fall, it could endanger House Republicans who won their seats by narrow margins and jeopardize the GOP’s full control of political power in Washington.
Even a small change is significant in the 8th District, where Republican Gabe Evans was elected to Congress in 2024 with 2,449 of more than 333,000 votes cast. His seat is one of Democrats’ top targets as they push to retake the House in November.
Evans is a former police officer whose mother is Mexican-American. He urged the administration to focus on deporting criminals rather than people in the country illegally who are otherwise law-abiding — as Evans puts it, “gangbangers, not grannies.”
In an interview, Evans said he was concerned about Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s assertion that it can search homes only with an administrative warrant, rather than one signed by a judge. He said he looks forward to questioning Department of Homeland Security officials during an upcoming House hearing.
Still, Evans blamed Democrats for the impasse in Minneapolis and the broader impression that ICE is out of control.
“One side wants to fan the flames and equivocate in this space because they want an issue to continue into November,” he said.
He noted that ICE has tread lightly in his district, with tailored operations targeting criminals rather than local industries that rely on immigrant workers.
“We have large meatpacking plants, we have large dairies, we have places where if ICE was trying to meet a quota, you would see ICE going to them,” Evans said.
Voters were conflicted about the approach of immigration enforcement
About 4 in 10 voters in Evans County are Hispanic. In more than two dozen interviews in the district, every voter who identified as Hispanic spoke of being offended by Trump’s immigration crackdown. Many—all American citizens—feared for their own safety.
“I don’t know if just because of my last name or the way I look, they could go after me,” Jennifer Hernandez, 30, said as she walked into a Walmart in Brighton.
Many other voters supported the operation in Minnesota, even after the shootings of Good and Pretti.
“They have to clean up the immigrants, for sure,” said Herb Smith, a 61-year-old generator installer and Trump voter.
Smith, who is black, said he once lived in Minneapolis and left because of the Somali immigrants who drew Trump’s ire: “Trump is right, these people are poisoning our people.”
Dominic Morrison, 39, a telecommunications technician, said he doesn’t like to see people lose their lives, but believes enforcement of immigration laws is necessary.
“I know everyone wants a better life and a better situation, but if I went somewhere else without permission, it wouldn’t be taken well,” Morrison said.
Racial Profiling Has Something “Walking On Eggshells”
Democrats in the district said they were outraged by the increased law enforcement and are blaming Evans along with Trump.
“He didn’t say anything against it,” said Jim Getman, a retired electrical technician who has volunteered for Democrats in 2024. “He’s always supported Trump in everything he’s done.”
Joe Hernandez, 27, pays much less attention to politics. But the forklift operator and his family members — all citizens or legal residents — fear they could be swept up by immigration officers who racially profile people.
“We’re walking on eggshells right now,” Hernandez said as she filled a pitcher of water at a faucet outside a Mexican supermarket in Commerce City, a heavily immigrant town at the southern end of the 8th District.
Hernandez said it got so bad that he and his four siblings, all U.S.-born citizens, considered moving to the property his family owns in Mexico for their safety. He didn’t vote in 2024 and has never voted before, like many he knows.
He plans to change that this year, and he thinks he’s not the only one.
“More people are like, oh … we have to vote,” he said.