At a rally and news conference in downtown Denver today, protesters called on Robert J. Lange, the CEO of Highlands REIT, a real estate company, to “put people over profits” and refuse to rent his company’s detention center northeast of Denver to ICE.
The demand of Lange was delivered in front of the Chamber and Buerger Brothers Lofts, which are two of seven buildings owned by Highlands REIT in Denver.
Rev. Ben Konecny of the First Congregational Church in Greeley told about 75 rallygoers that he emailed Lange requesting a meeting “to discuss our moral concern about such a facility operating in our county.”
Tenants of Highlands REIT properties should know that their rent payments are “going to a company that is seeking to make significant profit from their dealings with ICE,” said Konecyny. He urged Highlands REIT tenants to contact Lange.
Rev. Lindsay Batesmith of REJOICE Lutheran Church made a “moral plea” to Lange not to be “distracted” by the “possibility of making millions of dollars” and, instead, to focus on what “is happening in those facilities — that people are being denied access to legal counsel and not getting the opportunity to make their case in court.”
“ICE is not trustworthy to run that facility in a way that promotes human dignity,” said Batesmith.
The Highlands REIT’s jail, located 30 miles northeast of Denver in the town of Hudson, would be operated by the GEO Group, a private prison corporation with a history of “human rights violations,” said Nayda Benitez, who is organizing director of the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition (CIRC), which sponsored today’s rally and news conference along with Together Colorado. Both are progressive advocacy groups. The GEO Group operates an ICE jail in Aurora.
“We invite you, Mr. Lange, to read the Shutdown Geo Coalition’s 2025 Accountability Report,” said Beitez. “We know that if this Geo facility opens in Hudson, ICE enforcement in Hudson and nearby communities will heighten, and ICE detentions in Colorado will skyrocket. As ICE enforcement increases, public trust and crime reporting among immigrant communities will decrease in Weld County and surrounding communities.”
With the crowd intermittently chanting, “End the contract” and “Meet with us,” Thomas Weiler, lead organizer for Together Colorado, explained that it’s not known for sure whether Highlands REIT has signed a contract with ICE and the GEO Group.
“If they have [signed a contract], they got to cancel it,” said Weiler. “If they haven’t, they need to stop their negotiations immediately. We demand that Highlands REIT divest from all ICE-related business, and every corporation must divest from all ICE-related business.”
Weiler called on Lange to meet with him and other organizers within five days. Meanwhile, he said, organizers will try to activate supporters at other properties they say are owned by Highlands REIT in Denver: Kenilworth Court on N. Downing Street; Tennyson44 on Tennyson Street; The Detroit and Detroit Terraces on Detroit Street; the Lafayette on Lafayette Street; and the Muse on S. University Blvd.
Weiler also said that Highlands REIT owns properties in at least five other states, including Illinois, California, and Pennsylvania, and he encouraged the crowd to generate pressure on Highlands REIT from those states as well.
A call requesting a comment from Lange or Highlands REIT was not immediately returned.
The Hudson jail, built in 2009, was initially used for inmates from Alaska, but has been closed since 2014. It has over 1,200 beds and is one of six facilities that were presented to ICE by private operators as possible sites for a second ICE jail in Colorado. ICE has already contracted with the GEO Group to run the detention center, which ICE documents refer to as the Big Horn Correctional Facility. It was previously called the Hudson Correctional Facility.
