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COWINS Joins Lawsuit

June 17, 2025

Colorado WINS has been granted Intervenor-Complainant Status in a lawsuit filed by Scott Moss, director of the Division of Labor Standards and Statistics in Colorado’s Department of Labor and Employment.

Colorado WINS has been granted Intervenor-Complainant Status in a lawsuit filed by Scott Moss, director of the Division of Labor Standards and Statistics in Colorado’s Department of Labor and Employment.

The suit exposes unlawful cooperation between state officials and federal immigration enforcement, alleging that state employees have been ordered to “commit illegal acts” by sharing information protected by state law.



Section 24-74-103 of Senate Bill 276 clearly stipulates that State agency employees cannot “disclose or make accessible, including through a database or automated network, personal identifying information that is not publicly available information for the purpose of investigating for, participating in, cooperating with, or assisting in federal immigration enforcement.”

This law helps us do our jobs as state workers. Coloradans share their information with us because we’ve committed to keeping it confidential. Any violation of that trust will erode public confidence in state agencies and the public services we work so hard to provide.

The lawsuit documents how state employees were directed to violate that law in order to comply with a federal subpoena, “risking a wide range of professional and personal harms, including personal penalties of up to $50,000 per violation.”

Here’s why COWINS is intervening:

1. We have a duty of representation to every one of the more than 27,000 state employees in our bargaining unit, and state employees have been implicated in actions that violate State law.

2. Many state employees are themselves part of mixed-status families: we want to ensure that their personal identifying information is protected.

3. Coloradans trust us to protect their information, and any violation of that trust risks eroding public confidence in state agencies and the public services we work so hard to provide.

4. All state workers–and all Coloradans–need to know exactly what happened and how far-reaching this violation was. Being a party to this lawsuit will help us get that information.



If you believe you may be personally implicated, or want more information about your rights, please call our confidential phone line at 720-908-6781.

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