Deputy Alexander Zwinck, who pulled over Caroline Dias Goncalves, was placed on three weeks of unpaid leave and removed from his assignment to a drug task force.
(Mesa County Sheriff’s Office) Caroline Dias Goncalves, a University of Utah student, is seen in this screenshot from the body camera footage recorded by the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office deputy who originally pulled her over in Colorado on June 5, 2025. She was later detained by immigration officers shortly after the traffic stop.
The Mesa County Sheriff’s Office has punished five deputies in the wake of a June traffic stop along Interstate 70 in western Colorado that led to the immigration arrest of a 19-year-old college student from Utah.
Deputy Alexander Zwinck, who pulled over Caroline Dias Goncalves on June 5, has been placed on three weeks of unpaid leave and removed from his assignment to a drug task force. When he returns to work, the sheriff’s office says he will be placed on regular patrol.
Dias Goncalves, a University of Utah student studying nursing who was born in Brazil, was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents shortly after she was pulled over by Zwinck for allegedly driving too close to a semitrailer on Interstate 70 near the town of Loma.
Zwinck let her off with a warning, but not before alerting federal authorities on the encrypted messaging platform Signal that he had pulled her over. Federal immigration agents looked up Dias Goncalves and determined she was in the U.S. on an overstayed visa.
Dias Goncalves spent about two weeks at the immigration detention center in Aurora after her arrest. She told The Salt Lake Tribune that her days at the facility were “the hardest of my life.” She was released on bond June 20.
(Caroline Dias Goncalves family photo) Pictured is Caroline Dias Goncalves, who has been held at a Colorado immigration detention center since Thursday, June 5, 2025, according to her family.
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser alleged earlier this month in announcing a lawsuit against Zwinck that the deputy knew the Signal chat included federal immigration agents. The chat was set up as part of drug interdiction on the Western Slope.
The attorney general also alleged Zwinck had aided ICE officers in a previous immigration arrest and that he detained Dias Goncalves long enough to make sure ICE agents could respond.
Colorado law prohibits state and local law enforcement from asking people about their immigration status. State law also prohibits officers from aiding in federal immigration enforcement outside of their criminal enforcement duties.
“The Mesa County Sheriff’s Office should not have had any role in the chain of events leading to Ms. Dias Goncalves’ detention, and I regret that this occurred,” Mesa County Sheriff Todd Rowell, a Republican, said in a written statement. “I apologize to Ms. Dias Goncalves.”
The sheriff said a review of Dias Goncalves’ arrest found that his office needs to enhance training on Colorado’s laws around state and local law enforcement participating in immigration actions.
(Caroline Dias Goncalves family photo) Pictured is Caroline Dias Goncalves, who was held at a Colorado immigration detention center for more than two weeks.
The other Mesa County deputies being disciplined following the investigation into Dias Goncalves’ arrest are:
Sheriff Rowell, however, blasted Weiser’s decision to sue Zwinck, saying that the Democrat should let the sheriff’s office handle the situation internally and accusing Weiser of applying the law unevenly. Rowell said the Signal chat Zwinck was on included Colorado State Patrol troopers who similarly alerted federal immigration agents about traffic stops and questioned why Weiser hasn’t sued them, too.
“As it stands, the lawsuit filed by the Attorney General’s Office sends a demoralizing message to law enforcement officers across Colorado — that the law may be wielded selectively and publicly for maximum political effect rather than applied fairly and consistently,” Rowell said.
Colorado State Patrol Chief Matthew C. Packard called Rowell’s claims “misinformed and premature.”
“For the patrol, our use was for operations targeting the combat of drug trafficking and organized crime,” Packard said, adding that CSP stopped participating in the chat on June 18.
The lawsuit against Zwinck remains in its early stages. Weiser’s office has filed a motion seeking a Mesa County judge to issue a preliminary injunction barring Zwinck from violating Colorado’s prohibition on local law enforcement helping with federal immigration enforcement.
A relative of Dias Goncalves told The Salt Lake Tribune that she originally came to the United States with her parents in 2012, when she was 7. The family had a 6-month tourist visa, which they overstayed. They were afraid to return to Brazil, the relative said, after experiencing violence there, including being robbed and held as hostages by gangs several times.