“We will now allow our immigrant neighbors to be terrorized like this,” said Tim Macdonald, the legal director of the ACLU of Colorado. “The landlord’s threats violate Colorado state law, which prevents landlords from trying to take advantage of the perceived immigration status of their tenants and coercing them into refraining from exercising their rights.”
The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado has filed a lawsuit against an Aurora-area landlord, claiming that the defendant violated state law by threatening to report Venezuelan tenants to immigration authorities.
According to The Denver Gazette, the ACLU’s complaint cites provision of the Colorado Immigrant Tenant Protection Act of 2020. Under the act, landlords are generally prohibiting from disclosing or sharing information about their tenants with federal immigration authorities.
“We will now allow our immigrant neighbors to be terrorized like this,” said Tim Macdonald, the legal director of the ACLU of Colorado. “The landlord’s threats violate Colorado state law, which prevents landlords from trying to take advantage of the perceived immigration status of their tenants and coercing them into refraining from exercising their rights.”
The Gazette reports that the plaintiffs in the case are a Venezuelan couple with two children, all of whom have pending asylum applications. They are not identified by name, but are instead referred to by the pseudonyms “Jone Doe” and “Jane Roe.”
The lawsuit alleges that the family moved into their apartment in October of 2024. They signed a lease, and agreed to pay $1,800 per month in rent. However, in November 2024, the plaintiffs purportedly “incurred unexpected medical expenses that led them to fall behind on rent.”

A month later, in December, the family returned to their unit to find that the locks had been changed; they say that they were not provided with advance notice, as typically required under Colorado state law.
“That night, [on December 4,] Mr. Doe and the couple’s fifteen-year-old son were forced to sleep in their car overnight in the winter cold,” the lawsuit alleges. “The next day, they were able to access the Apartment through a window.”
The family say that they attempted to contact the landlord, but were told by a manager that they “could not do anything because they are not ‘from here,’ are Venezuelan, and have no rights.”
Although Doe and Roe were able to regain access to their apartment after paying their rent, they were again confronted in January with allegations that they still owed the management company money. When the family asked to see documentation, the landlord “raised his voice,” spoke in “broken Spanish,” and told them that he would call “Migra,” or immigration, if they did not pay him by the end of the day.
The landlords involved include Avi Schwalb, assistant manager Nancy Dominguez, and PHS Rent LLC, the owner of Schwalb’s Nordic Arms Apartments in Aurora.
Schwalb has since denied the allegations.
“I don’t care what country you’re from as long as you follow the rules in the unit, you respect other tenants, and you’re paying rent,” Schwalb told The Denver Gazette.
The family is seeking damages for harm and a retraining order to prevent the landlord from threatening other tenants.
Sources
ACLU sues Aurora landlord for alleged immigration threats to Venezuelan couple
ACLU sues Aurora landlord for threatening tenants with immigration enforcement
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