Evans dodges questions about Trump’s immigration plans after narrow 8th District win in Colorado

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State Rep. Gabe Evans of Fort Lupton, elected to represent Colorado's 8th Congressional District, participates in a Republican primary debate at the Grizzly Rose in Denver on June 1, 2024. (Chase Woodruff/Colorado Newsline)

One day after declaring victory in a crucial Colorado congressional race, Republican state Rep. Gabe Evans of Fort Lupton didn’t come any closer to clarifying his views on President-elect Donald Trump’s detailed plans for the largest mass deportation in American history.

Continuing a pattern set throughout his campaign to unseat Democratic U.S. Rep. Yadira Caraveo in the 8th Congressional District, Evans while speaking to reporters Monday repeatedly evaded questions about promises by Trump and his top advisors to deport millions of undocumented immigrants living in the U.S., insisting that a “conversation” about those plans could be had at a later date.

“I think that’s at least step three in the process,” Evans said during a press conference at his campaign headquarters. “Step one: Secure the border. Step two: We have to make sure that those violent criminals that are in our community are being held accountable. … After we’ve got those priorities done, then we can absolutely continue to have that conversation about what we do with the millions of folks who are present illegally in the United States, but who aren’t committing crimes and who aren’t really causing massive problems in our society.”

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Evans’ comments are at odds with the day-one agenda that has been extensively and publicly outlined by Trump and those tapped for key roles on immigration policy in his second administration, including former Immigrations and Customs Enforcement director Tom Homan, named by Trump late Sunday as his “border czar,” and advisor Stephen Miller, who will serve as the incoming president’s deputy chief of staff.

Homan, an architect of the first Trump administration’s family separation policy, said in an interview last month that large-scale workplace raids against unauthorized workers would resume under Trump. Miller has pledged a “blitz” and “shock-and-awe” approach to deportation beginning on Trump’s first day back in office, and told the New York Times that the program would shift from targeted enforcement operations to mass roundups, involving what he called “vast holding facilities that would function as staging centers.”

Unofficial results in the 8th District show Evans, an Army veteran and former Arvada police officer, narrowly prevailing over Caraveo by about 2,500 votes after a campaign dominated by issues of crime and immigration. The Associated Press had yet to call the race Monday, but Caraveo conceded Sunday.

The 8th District is Colorado’s newest and most competitive congressional seat, and includes parts of Denver’s northern suburbs in Adams County as well as more rural areas in southern Weld County. Nearly 40% of the 8th District residents are Latino, and Caraveo’s narrow 2022 win made her the first Latina to represent Colorado in Congress.

Evans, the grandson of Mexican immigrants on his mother’s side, did not answer directly on Monday when asked about Miller’s comment, during a Trump rally in Aurora last month, that “America is for Americans and Americans only.”

“America is the great melting pot,” Evans said. “I think all that people ask is that if you’re going to come to the United States, you do it the right way.”

But that, too, is starkly at odds with the agenda laid out by Trump and his advisors. Miller has advocated freezing or curtailing a wide variety of pathways to legal immigration, including major new restrictions on work visas, green cards and temporary asylum statuses, as well as new and expanded travel bans. Miller has also called for an end to the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, and Trump has promised a day-one executive order ending automatic citizenship for children born in the United States.

Opposes family separation Evans did, however, express opposition to a reinstatement of the first Trump administration’s family separation policies. Miller was a driving force behind the so-called “zero tolerance” approach to unauthorized border crossings, which was implemented from 2017 to 2019 and resulted in the separation of more than 5,500 children from their families.

“I’m not a big fan of separating families,” said Evans. “I don’t think that’s the right path to go down.”

Evans’ presumptive victory in the 8th District could prove crucial for Republicans, who are on track to maintain their narrow majority in the U.S. House of Representatives and give Trump’s party unified control of the federal government.

Evans cruised to victory in the 8th District’s Republican primary in June thanks in part to Trump’s endorsement. When asked earlier this year about Trump’s plans to “deport them all,” Evans affirmed his support — “yeah, you go back and you wait in line, the way everybody else does,” he told moderators after some prodding in a June primary debate — but avoided answering the question throughout his general-election matchup with Caraveo.

He also didn’t answer when asked repeatedly during an October debate about Trump’s racist rhetoric targeting immigrants, including the former president’s comments about immigrants who have “bad genes” and are “poisoning the blood of our country.”

“My faith guides me, I follow the Constitution and I listen to my constituents,” Evans said Monday of how he will approach his work in Congress. “And so, in order, that is how I’m going to be making my decisions.”

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