Colorado deputy who resigned after tipping off federal immigration agents later took job with ICE

Seth Klamann, The Denver Post on Nov 12, 2026

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DENVER — A former Mesa County sheriff’s deputy who resigned last year after he was accused of illegally collaborating with federal immigration agents was later hired by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to a leaked roster of agency personnel released last month.

Alexander Zwinck is listed in the leaked data as a special agent in the Grand Junction field office of Homeland Security Investigations, an ICE subagency. The leak does not identify when Zwinck was hired or whether he remains employed at the agency; it lists an “activation” date of Sept. 16, 2025, roughly two weeks after he resigned from the sheriff’s office.

The leak included an apparent phone number for Zwinck. A man who answered a call placed to that number hung up after a reporter identified himself. He did not respond to a follow-up text seeking comment.

In an unsigned statement Wednesday, a representative for ICE said the agency would not confirm or deny any of its employees’ identities. The representative said identifying personnel puts their lives at risk.

Zwinck’s apparent hiring by ICE was first reported Wednesday by The Colorado Sun. The outlet reported that it called the same phone number and that the man who answered the phone confirmed that he was Zwinck before hanging up.

The leaked data, which includes records on thousands of officials within the agency, was hacked by a group called the Department of Peace, and it was subsequently released by another group, Distributed Denial of Secrets. The list included more than 41,000 employees of the Department of Homeland Security, according to The Washington Post. Homeland Security oversees ICE.

The Washington Post reported late last month that it had verified the authenticity of the leak with current and former Homeland Security officials, and the agency told the newspaper in a statement that it was as “aware of a potential breach.”

It’s unclear when the files were hacked. The breach lists several senior ICE officials, attorneys and spokespeople in Colorado who have been identified in court records, hearings, interviews or other public records.

The Post also identified other agents and personnel whose names have appeared in court filings, years-old public records releases, or are otherwise publicly available. The entry for Nathan Rasper, ICE’s acting field director in Denver, lists the role he held until last month; he described that position in federal court Monday.

Zwinck resigned from the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office after he was accused of illegally tipping off ICE agents about a Brazilian student at the University of Utah whom he had pulled over near Grand Junction. In June 2025, Zwinck stopped the student, Caroline Dias Goncalves, and then allegedly delayed her release so immigration agents could position themselves to arrest her.

Under Colorado law, local law enforcement cannot cooperate with civil immigration enforcement, and Zwinck quit the agency after being sued by then Attorney General Phil Weiser — a complaint the AG dropped following the deputy’s resignation.

Zwinck was part of a group chat with agents from Homeland Security Investigations and ICE and alerted its members to Dias Goncalves’ presence, Mesa County officials later said. He allegedly told the group chat about the make and model of her car, as well as her license plate number and her direction of travel.

Dias Goncalves was arrested and spent more than two weeks in the Aurora immigrant detention center before she was released.

In statements included in court filings challenging the legality of her arrest, Dias Goncalves said she was “placed in a system that treated me like I didn’t matter” and that she was served “soggy, wet food.” She said that she had to move in with her parents after her release because she’d lost one of her jobs and had dropped nearly all of her coursework. She also began therapy for stress and anxiety. She was 19 at the time of her arrest.

A federal judge later ruled that her arrest was illegal.

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