CENTENNIAL, Colo. (CN) — A Colorado judge on Tuesday granted a Venezuelan couple’s request for an injunction barring their landlord from discriminating against them due to their immigration status after their landlord agreed to the stipulations.
“Since the Doe family moved in, the defendants have treated them as second-class tenants due to their perceived citizenship and immigration status and that is intolerable under Colorado law,” said the couple’s attorney, Anna Kurtz with the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado.
The couple, who sued their landlord anonymously in the District Court for Arapahoe County on Jan. 28, claimed landlord Avi Schwalb and property manager Nancy Dominguez used their tenants’ immigration status to intimidate them.
Passed in 2020, Colorado’s Immigrant Tenant Protection Act prohibits landlords from using a tenant’s citizen status against them or intimidating tenants by threatening to disclose their immigration status.
“In broad strokes, what the ITPA does is to protect immigrants against perceived immigration status and prohibits landlords from using that immigration status to coerce or intimidate their tenants,” Kurtz told the court.
In all, six attorneys from two law firms appeared in court and on WebEx in support of the couple. Schwalb and Dominguez represented themselves.
With two decades in the business, Schwalb owns 450 units in Aurora and said his only concern is collecting the $6,000 in rent he is owed.
“All kinds of people live in our property, Spanish, Mexican, we deal with them every single day, some of them are good and some of them are bad,” Schwalb said. Schwalb recalled receiving noise complaints about the couple’s unit and that he was taken aback to find 10 people and two children inside when he went to collect the rent.
“I don’t know where this case goes, but we have a lot of problems with illegal people,” Schwalb said. “Those people have to learn the rules of the United States, and they have so many people here to protect them, what do they have to protect them from? Me? I just wanted the rent.”
Eighteenth Judicial District Judge Thomas Henderson told Schwalb he wasn’t in an eviction hearing, so the rent wouldn’t come into his calculation on whether to grant the injunction.
Henderson directed Schwalb to review a Jan. 29 temporary restraining order prohibiting him from, “disclosing or threatening to disclose information regarding or relating to the immigration or citizenship status of plaintiffs or their minor children to any person, entity, or immigration or law enforcement agency.”
The order also prohibits the landlord from intimidating the couple or evicting them, “solely or in part on plaintiffs’ immigration or citizenship status.”
Schwalb said he had no problem with the order remaining in place through the duration of an evidentiary hearing, prompting Henderson to grant it without hearing from the couple’s witnesses.
In the original complaint, the couple said they signed a one-year lease with PHS Rent last September for a monthly rent of $1,800, but their landlord locked them out of their apartment on Dec. 4, 2024, forcing them to sleep in their car overnight.
The plaintiffs say in the complaint that the landlord’s office informed the couple they “could not do anything about it because they are not from here, are Venezuelan and have no rights.”
When the couple questioned the amount owed, they say in the complaint, threatened to call Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
As an immigrant herself, Dominguez said she would never use someone’s immigration status against them.
“I would never do this to anybody in the United States, or even think about doing that, so it really angers me that people would say I would do this, because I am an immigrant,” Dominguez said. The property manager also explained that she changed the locks on the apartment because she was unable to reach the tenants for three weeks and she was worried squatters would move in.
The couple’s attorney also informed the court they received an eviction summons and were worried they were facing retaliation for filing the suit. The couple appeared in court via WebEx with an interpreter.
Schwalb told the court he intended to file a formal eviction complaint against the couple after he left the hearing. Due to a court clerical error, the eviction had not been filed earlier.
“Among the various laws that are in place to protect tenants rights, there is a section that prohibits landlords from engaging in retaliatory behavior, meaning if a tenant is sticking up for their rights, you can’t use that as a basis for trying to evict somebody,” Henderson said. “That’s not before me today, but I believe counsel is raising that on behalf of the plaintiffs, so just be aware that you can’t do that.”