Domestic Violence Lawyer Denver

Immigration Alert: A domestic violence conviction, and in some cases a judge's finding that you violated a protection order, can make a non-citizen deportable under INA § 237(a)(2)(E), even when the conviction would not count as any other kind of deportable crime. Talk to us before you plead guilty to anything. Call (888) 746-5245.

By Aaron Elinoff, Managing Partner, Novo Legal Group. Last reviewed: November 2026.

A domestic violence arrest in Colorado moves before a judge ever hears your side of it.

An officer who believes there's probable cause has to make an arrest under C.R.S. § 18-6-803.6, often that same night, regardless of what the other person wants. At the first court appearance, usually within 48 hours of booking, a protection order with stay-away terms can keep a person out of their own home for as long as the case is open.

This page is written for the person facing that charge. If you're the person who was hurt and you're looking for a protection order or survivor-based immigration status of your own, skip ahead to "If You Are the Person Who Was Harmed" below.

If you, your spouse, or a family member holds a green card, a visa, DACA status, or no immigration status at all, keep reading. The criminal case on the docket right now carries a second case most people never see coming, an immigration case, and we work both from day one.

Novo Legal's criminal defense team handles domestic violence charges across Denver and the rest of Colorado. We fight the criminal case and the immigration case side by side, because a plea that looks fine in county court can cost someone their place in this country if nobody checked the immigration side first.

The Short Answer on Domestic Violence Charges in Colorado

In Colorado, domestic violence is a designation under C.R.S. § 18-6-800.3 attached to another charge, usually assault, harassment, menacing, or criminal mischief, when the alleged victim is an intimate partner.

Two things happen almost immediately. Police make a mandatory arrest under C.R.S. § 18-6-803.6, and at the first appearance the court enters a mandatory criminal protection order under C.R.S. § 18-1-1001, to which judges commonly add terms that bar a return home.

For a non-citizen, the step that matters most is the guilty plea. Any guilty plea can carry immigration consequences. That includes a plea entered for a deferred judgment. The exact charge still needs a crimmigration review against federal law before that plea is entered.

A crimmigration review checks the criminal charge against federal immigration law, and we run one on every domestic violence case before any plea.

What "Domestic Violence" Means Under Colorado Law

DV Is a Label Added to Another Charge

Under C.R.S. § 18-6-800.3, domestic violence is a label the court attaches to an underlying offense, commonly assault, harassment, menacing, or criminal mischief, when it is committed against a person in an intimate relationship with the accused.

Colorado defines an intimate relationship broadly: spouses, former spouses, current or former unmarried couples, and people who share a child, whether or not they ever married or lived together.

The label also attaches to a property crime committed to coerce, control, punish, intimidate, or avenge a partner. That property-crime reach surprises people charged with criminal mischief over a broken phone or a slashed tire.

What Happens in the First 72 Hours

The sequence after an arrest runs on its own clock.

Police arrest the accused person, frequently on the spot. A judge holds the first appearance, where bond is set, within 48 hours of arrival at the jail under C.R.S. § 16-4-102, sometimes sooner.

At that hearing, the court advises the accused person of the mandatory criminal protection order under C.R.S. § 18-1-1001. In domestic violence cases, judges commonly add no-contact and stay-away terms, which can bar a return home for as long as the case is open.

Bond conditions stack on top of the protection order: no new offenses, sometimes GPS monitoring, sometimes check-ins with a pretrial services officer.

We walk every client through what each condition restricts in plain language, because the paperwork handed out at the jail rarely does.

Your Rights When Police Arrive: Colorado's Mandatory Arrest Law

Colorado's mandatory arrest law leaves the alleged victim's wishes out of the arrest decision. The law responds to a documented pattern. Nationally, the CDC's National Center for Injury Prevention and Control reports that more than 1 in 3 women and more than 1 in 6 men in the United States have experienced contact sexual violence, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner in their lifetime.

Under C.R.S. § 18-6-803.6, an officer with probable cause to believe a domestic violence crime occurred has to arrest the suspected person without undue delay. An alleged victim's request to drop it carries no legal weight at this stage.

In a dual-claim situation, where each person says the other one started it, the law does not require officers to arrest both people. They evaluate probable cause against each person separately, which leads to one arrest, two arrests, or none, depending on what the evidence shows for each person.

You have the right to remain silent, and for a non-citizen that right matters more than almost anything else that happens that night.

A statement made to police lands in the criminal file. The criminal file follows a person into immigration court years later.

Our guide to Colorado's mandatory arrest law covers dual-arrest situations and your rights during a police encounter in more detail.

The Protection Order You Didn't Ask For

At the first appearance, Colorado enters a protection order automatically.

C.R.S. § 18-1-1001 creates a mandatory criminal protection order against anyone charged under Title 18, running from that first appearance through final disposition of the case, whether that disposition is a plea, a dismissal, or a trial verdict.

The mandatory order bars harassing, molesting, intimidating, retaliating against, or tampering with the alleged victim and any witness. In domestic violence cases the court can add, and commonly does add, terms barring contact and requiring the accused person to stay away from the shared home until the case ends. A criminal protection order can also bar contact with your children, including contact that an existing parenting-time order allows.

This criminal protection order is a different instrument from a civil protection order, which a person asks a Colorado court for directly, with or without a divorce or custody case. The two run on separate processes, and both can be in place at the same time.

For a non-citizen who has been admitted to the U.S., a court finding of a violation of the part of a protection order, criminal or civil, that protects against credible threats of violence, repeated harassment, or bodily injury can independently support removal under INA § 237(a)(2)(E)(ii), even without a conviction on the underlying charge.

We treat every protection-order-violation allegation as seriously as the underlying charge, because immigration law does.

Colorado courts allow a request to modify a protection order's terms. Our protection-order guide covers how that modification process works.

Immigration Implications of a Domestic Violence Charge

A plea deal that looks fine on the criminal side still puts immigration status at risk.

Our criminal defense and immigration teams review every domestic violence charge together before a client signs anything, because the two systems grade the same facts by different rules.

The Federal "Crime of Domestic Violence" Ground

Federal immigration law treats domestic violence as its own deportation ground, separate from the two frameworks people usually ask about first.

Under INA § 237(a)(2)(E)(i), a noncitizen convicted after admission of a federal "crime of domestic violence" is deportable on that ground alone, whether or not the same conviction also counts as a crime involving moral turpitude or an aggravated felony. The same ground also covers a conviction for stalking.

Whether a specific Colorado conviction matches that federal definition turns on more than the domestic violence label.

The federal ground has two parts. For the violence part, immigration judges and federal courts apply a categorical approach: they compare the elements of the Colorado statute of conviction, not the facts of what happened that night, against the federal definition of a crime of violence in 18 U.S.C. § 16(a). Section 16(b) no longer applies. The U.S. Supreme Court struck it down as unconstitutionally vague in Sessions v. Dimaya, 584 U.S. 148 (2018). For the relationship part, immigration courts can look beyond the elements of the conviction to decide whether the person harmed was a spouse, partner, or co-parent.

Because Colorado's domestic violence label attaches to a range of underlying statutes, some will match the federal definition and some will not, and that stays a statute-by-statute, record-by-record question.

Answering it takes the exact charge and the exact record of conviction. That open question is the reason we run a crimmigration review before a plea.

Why a Deferred Judgment Can Still Count as a Conviction

A Colorado deferred judgment requires a guilty plea up front, under C.R.S. § 18-1.3-102, before the court imposes its conditions: supervision, probation, treatment, community service.

That combination, a guilty plea plus a court-imposed condition, meets the federal definition of a conviction in INA § 101(a)(48)(A). When every condition is complete, Colorado withdraws the plea and dismisses the case with prejudice.

Federal immigration law still counts the conviction.

A deferred judgment helps on the criminal side, and in immigration court it gets the same statute-by-statute analysis as any other conviction. We do not call a deferred judgment immigration-safe on a domestic violence charge.

Green Card Holders

A domestic violence conviction can put a green card at risk even when that same conviction would not trigger removal under the moral-turpitude or aggravated-felony categories, because INA § 237(a)(2)(E) stands on its own as a removal ground. How criminal charges affect your green card walks through how this standalone ground interacts with the others for lawful permanent residents.

DACA Recipients

DACA treats domestic violence differently than almost any other charge on the books. DACA rules, 8 C.F.R. § 236.22(b)(6), list domestic violence as an enumerated significant misdemeanor, disqualifying regardless of the sentence imposed, so a plea to a misdemeanor DV charge with no jail time at all ends DACA eligibility.

As of November 2026, USCIS is processing DACA renewals but not initial requests, following the Fifth Circuit's January 17, 2025 ruling, which means a current DACA recipient facing a DV charge is protecting status that has no path to rebuild from scratch right now.

DACA and criminal charges covers the full three-part test USCIS applies.

Visa Holders and Pending Applicants

An arrest is not a conviction, and an arrest alone does not automatically bar a pending visa petition, U-visa case, asylum application, or TPS renewal. It still goes in the record: immigration agencies weigh arrests in discretionary decisions, and the State Department can revoke a nonimmigrant visa after an arrest. A conviction raises the stakes, and whether a pending application survives one depends on the exact statute, the exact disposition, and the exact factual basis entered into the record.

Plea structuring, meaning the specific charge, sentence, and factual basis a defense attorney negotiates into a final plea, is where a crimmigration review earns its place, because two pleas that sound nearly identical in a Colorado courtroom sometimes land on opposite sides of an approval.

Undocumented Individuals

An undocumented person arrested on a domestic violence charge faces one more layer once the jail takes fingerprints, because those records are shared with federal immigration authorities. Colorado law bars local officers from holding anyone on an ICE detainer request, C.R.S. § 24-76.6-102, but ICE can still pursue its own arrest, including after release, before the criminal case resolves.

A conviction that qualifies as a crime of domestic violence can also close off relief. It bars cancellation of removal for people who are not permanent residents, one of the main defenses in immigration court for long-term residents. Family-based green card paths turn on a different question, whether the offense is a ground of inadmissibility such as a crime involving moral turpitude, and some of those grounds can be waived.

We plan for the criminal case and the ICE arrest risk together, starting with the first phone call.

Go Deeper

A pending charge and an existing conviction are two different problems, so we cover them in separate guides.

If the case is still open and no guilty plea has been entered, our domestic violence and immigration guide covers plea structuring and safe-harbor dispositions for a charge that has not been decided yet.

If a domestic violence conviction is already on the record, our domestic violence and deportation guide covers removal proceedings and post-conviction relief.

Your future is worth fighting for. Schedule a consultation before you plead guilty to anything. Call (888) 746-5245.

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Misdemeanor or Felony: How Colorado Grades DV Cases

The grade of a domestic violence case follows the underlying charge. Harassment and many menacing charges stay misdemeanors. Felony assault charges stay felonies, with the DV label attached.

Colorado's habitual domestic violence offender law, C.R.S. § 18-6-801(7), changes that math for a person with three or more prior convictions for offenses involving domestic violence. They must come from separate criminal episodes. The law then turns what would otherwise be a misdemeanor into a class 5 felony.

Sentencing runs across a wide statutory range, and the exact exposure depends on the underlying charge, the record, and the judge. Our misdemeanor-versus-felony guide walks through those ranges in full.

Court Dates, ICE, and Having Your Attorney Beside You

The fear of walking into a Colorado courthouse with ICE somewhere nearby is real, and it is reasonable.

Colorado law, C.R.S. § 13-1-403, bars civil arrests at a courthouse and on the way to or from a court proceeding. Whether a state law can limit federal immigration agents is a contested question, so this statute is no guarantee against an ICE arrest.

Your attorney is with you at every hearing.

We know the Denver courthouses and how these dockets run, and we handle every appearance the court allows counsel to handle without the client physically present. Domestic violence cases routinely require the defendant in the room at the hearings that matter most.

We are not going to promise a hearing you will not have to attend, because a promise like that costs a client more than the fear it was meant to calm, the moment it turns out to be wrong.

Our job is to plan the immigration side of the case before the first appearance, so that whatever happens in that courtroom, the client walks in already knowing what it means for their status.

What to do if ICE detains a family member covers the steps to take if ICE custody happens anyway.

Talk to our criminal and immigration lawyers before you plead guilty. Call (888) 746-5245.

Schedule a Consultation

Fighting the Charge: Defenses in Colorado DV Cases

False and Exaggerated Accusations

Some domestic violence charges describe a night that did not happen the way the report says.

False reports sometimes surface during custody disputes. Witnesses recant once the adrenaline of a bad night wears off.

An alleged victim who never wanted the case filed cannot make it disappear on request, because in Colorado the prosecution decides whether to proceed.

Our false-accusations guide covers how we build a defense around a recanting witness or a motive to lie.

How We Build the Defense

Every case starts with the same review. The review covers the 911 audio, the body camera footage, text messages, and the statements each officer wrote down before anyone had a lawyer in the room.

Inconsistencies between what a report says and what a recording shows change outcomes. A successful motion to suppress a statement taken without a proper advisement changes the calculus too.

We review every page of the file before we talk about outcomes.

Our earlier guide to building a strong defense against domestic violence charges in Denver goes deeper on evidence review and suppression strategy.

What a DV Conviction Takes Beyond the Sentence

Your Right to Own a Firearm

A domestic violence case costs more than whatever sentence a judge imposes.

Colorado requires firearm relinquishment twice. Each deadline is 24 hours, not counting weekends and legal holidays: one from service of the criminal protection order in domestic violence cases involving the threat or use of physical force, C.R.S. § 18-1-1001, and one from sentencing on a domestic violence conviction, C.R.S. § 18-6-801(8). For someone in custody, the clock starts at release.

Federal law goes further.

The Lautenberg Amendment, 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(9), bars anyone convicted of a qualifying misdemeanor crime of domestic violence from possessing a firearm or ammunition anywhere in the country, independent of anything Colorado does. Narrow exceptions exist. They include a pardon, expungement, or set-aside of the conviction.

Our firearm-rights guide covers both layers in detail.

Mandatory Treatment

A conviction also triggers a required domestic violence evaluation and treatment program under C.R.S. § 18-6-801, run to standards set by Colorado's Domestic Violence Offender Management Board, C.R.S. § 16-11.8-103.

The classes cost money and take months to complete.

"Just do the classes and move on" fails as a strategy when the plea underneath those classes is the same plea that creates the immigration problem.

Our treatment guide covers the program requirements and timeline.

Why a DV Charge Demands a Team That Fights in Both Courtrooms

We treat the courthouse door as the midpoint of a domestic violence case, because for a lot of our clients the fight that decides their future happens in a different courtroom entirely.

On a domestic violence charge, we run the criminal defense and the crimmigration analysis side by side from the first consultation, before anyone signs a plea agreement.

Novo Legal Group is a Spanish-first practice: every attorney is bilingual, and our intake team answers in Spanish. If you need a domestic violence lawyer Denver families can talk to in Spanish, our Denver office, (303) 335-0250, and our toll-free line, (888) 746-5245, both answer in English and Spanish.

An attorney explains case details to two clients standing in her office.

A plea that looks like a win in county court can set up a removal case later, and that costs more than it saves.

We make sure every client knows that cost before signing anything.

Our firm is a human rights firm before it is a criminal defense firm, and we built our criminal defense practice and our immigration practice as one team because a "simple" domestic violence charge is rarely simple once immigration status is in the room.

If You Are the Person Who Was Harmed

If you are the person who was hurt and you are looking for protection or a path to independent immigration status, three resources fit your situation better than this one: a civil protection order through family court, VAWA self-petitions for survivors of any gender abused by a U.S.-citizen or permanent-resident spouse or parent, and U-visa status for victims of qualifying crimes, including domestic violence, who have been or are likely to be helpful to law enforcement.

Our family-law and immigration teams handle these matters, without judgment, after a standard conflict check. Whether a specific path fits is a conversation for an attorney reviewing your situation directly.

Domestic Violence Defense Guides

Our guides cover eight angles on a Colorado domestic violence case.

Domestic violence and immigration, for a charge that is still pending
Domestic violence and deportation, for a conviction already on the record
Mandatory arrest law and what police can and cannot do
The mandatory protection order and how to request a modification
Misdemeanor versus felony grading and Colorado's habitual offender enhancement
False and exaggerated accusations, and how we build that defense
Firearm rights after a domestic violence case
Mandatory treatment requirements under Colorado's DVOMB standards

Frequently Asked Questions

Can the charges be dropped if my partner doesn't want to press them?

No. In Colorado, the district attorney's office decides whether to file and pursue a domestic violence charge. An alleged victim's wishes matter to how prosecutors negotiate a case, but they do not control whether the case proceeds. That is why a charge can move forward even after the person who called 911 that night wants it to stop.

Can I go home after my first appearance?

Not if the protection order in the case includes no-contact or stay-away terms that cover the home, which is common in domestic violence cases. Going back anyway, or contacting the protected person to ask permission, can be charged as a new crime, violation of a protection order under C.R.S. § 18-6-803.5, which is a class 1 misdemeanor when the order comes from a criminal case or protects an intimate partner, even if the protected person agrees. For a non-citizen, a court finding of that violation can also be a separate deportation ground. Either side can ask the court to modify the order.

Will a domestic violence charge get me deported?

It depends on the statute of conviction and what the record shows. Federal law treats a "crime of domestic violence" as its own deportation ground under INA § 237(a)(2)(E)(i), and whether a given Colorado conviction matches that federal definition is a case-by-case question. That is exactly why we review every charge before any plea.

Is a deferred judgment safe for immigration status?

Not as a category. A Colorado deferred judgment requires a guilty plea, and federal immigration law counts a guilty plea plus a court-imposed condition as a conviction, even after Colorado dismisses the case. Whether that conviction creates an immigration problem depends on the statute pleaded to, the same as any other conviction, which is why the plea needs review before it is entered.

Does ICE arrest people at Colorado courthouses?

Colorado law, C.R.S. § 13-1-403, bars civil arrests at courthouses and on the way to and from court. Whether that law can be enforced against federal immigration agents is unsettled, so it is no guarantee. We will not promise ICE will never be present. Your attorney will be there with you at every hearing, and we plan the immigration side of your case before you ever walk in.

Your Future Is Worth Fighting For. Talk to Us Before You Plead Guilty.

What to do next depends on where the case stands right now.

If the case is still pending and no guilty plea has been entered, a crimmigration review of the exact statute on the charging document does the most good now, before any plea agreement or deferred-judgment stipulation is signed.

If a plea has already been entered on a domestic violence charge, gather the plea agreement, the sentencing order, and the original charging document, and get them in front of a lawyer who handles both the criminal case and the immigration case.

If you are a family member, other than the protected person, trying to understand what a protection order means for your household, call us directly. We will explain what a no-contact order restricts and what it does not.

Schedule a consultation at (888) 746-5245.