DENVER — Colorado Gov. Jared Polis directed state employees to turn over information on sponsors of undocumented children to federal immigration authorities, despite protests that the order violated state laws limiting cooperation, according to a lawsuit filed by a senior official.

Scott Moss, a director within the state Department of Labor and Employment, alleged in the suit filed Wednesday evening that Polis personally decided to comply with an administrative subpoena from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. The subpoena was part of “investigative activities to locate unaccompanied alien children” and to ensure they were being cared for, according to the lawsuit.

Moss is now asking a Denver District Court judge to immediately block Polis’ order to furnish the information, which Moss was directed to complete by the end of the day Friday.

The subpoena, issued by ICE to the state in April and not signed by a judge, requested employment and family records for the sponsors of undocumented children separated from their parents, according to the lawsuit. The information would include birth dates and addresses. Moss was involved in handling the request as director of the state labor department’s Division of Labor Standards and Statistics.

The suit says Polis’ office had decided by early May not to comply with the subpoena because of state law prohibiting certain information sharing with federal authorities. But that stance shifted near the end of the month, the suit alleges, when Polis “personally decided” to reverse course and turn over the requested information to ICE. A governor’s spokesman confirmed Thursday that the state intends to comply with the subpoena.

That decision came around the time that Polis signed a new law creating additional protections against sharing personal information with federal authorities.

Colorado law prohibits state and local employees from sharing personal identifying information with immigration authorities unless required by law or a court order. Moss, the suit alleges, repeatedly told Polis’ office that complying with the subpoena would violate those laws.

He reiterated those objections in a memo he wrote last month, in which he warned that complying would renege on promises made by state employees — and by Polis — to protect immigrants’ information.

“In short, this sort of subpoena compliance stopped being a viable option once Governor Polis signed a law banning exactly this sort of immigration enforcement collaboration, on threat of fining state workers heavily, leading Governor Polis and state officials to reassure immigrants they can safety provide us information without fear — all against a backdrop of abusive practices by the ICE officials we’d be telling where to raid,” Moss wrote in the memo.

Moss’ attorneys declined an initial request for comment Thursday.

In a statement to The Denver Post, Polis spokesman Eric Maruyama wrote that Polis’ office had determined that the state should comply with the subpoena because it requested information related to “investigative activities.” State law directs employees to cooperate with criminal investigations, even if that includes sharing personal information that’s otherwise protected.

“After careful consideration of the subpoena and Colorado law that allows for the sharing of information to support timely criminal investigations, we do believe complying with this subpoena meets requirements set forth in law and is in the service of investigating and preventing criminal activity,” Maruyama wrote to The Denver Post.

“Specifically,” he continued, “the subpoena states Homeland Security Investigations ‘is conducting investigative activities to locate unaccompanied alien children ... to ensure that these children are appropriately located, properly cared for, and are not subjected to crimes of human trafficking or other forms of exploitation.’ ”

A spokesman for ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Last month, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Colorado and Denver over their “sanctuary laws” limiting or prohibiting cooperation with immigration authorities.

The agency previously has used so-called “welfare checks” in an attempt to contact immigrant children at Los Angeles schools. School personnel denied agents entry to the buildings, according to news reports, and immigration attorneys in the city raised alarms in April about the true intent of the checks.

Maruyama wrote that “attempts to delay or block (the information requested in the subpoena) could prolong criminal exploitation and abuse of children, and we are eager to assist.”

But in the lawsuit, Moss argued that the information gleaned from the subpoena could be used more widely against family members and the children themselves. In his earlier memo to state officials, Moss wrote that the subpoena “is for purposes of finding minors to deport.”

“There’s no real argument that every civil, administrative immigration subpoena is actually ‘criminal’ just because a civil, administrative investigation could find crimes that then might trigger an actual criminal investigation,” he wrote.

Polis’ decision also drew condemnation Thursday from the nonprofit law firm Towards Justice, which represents migrant workers and is led by attorney general candidate David Seligman.

In a statement, the firm — which is not representing Moss — accused Polis of supporting “Trump’s efforts to weaponize immigration laws in support of corporate lawbreakers.”

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