Hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside the Hudson Town Hall during Wednesday’s Town Council meeting to oppose a plan to open an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in Hudson, which is located about 30 minutes northeast of Denver.
The Town Council meeting, which began by discussing zoning and Airbnb rentals, allowed people to speak during the open comment period at the end of the two-and-a-half-hour meeting.
ICE recently revealed that it had signed a $529 million contract with the GEO Group, a private prison company, to open and operate an ICE jail in Hudson through 2031. GEO operates another immigration detention facility in Colorado in Aurora.
GEO Group, which currently operates the ICE facility in Aurora, Colorado, has faced allegations of human rights violations, including forced labor and widespread failure to provide adequate medical care to detainees.
Many of the speakers, who came from across the Front Range, including Hudson and municipalities in Weld County, urged Hudson town council members to examine what legal avenues they have to either stop the detention center from opening or schedule a vote on whether the town supports the center.
RELATED: ICE Awards $529 Million Contract to Open New Colorado Detention Center
Demonstrators warn of major violations of human rights
Before people were allowed to speak about the proposed detention facility, they gathered outside the Hudson town hall. Some flew the U.S. flag upside down, others waved hand-made signs expressing their discontent with federal immigration policy more broadly.
At one point, Hudson Mayor Joe Hammock asked police who stood guard in the room to stop the disruption and dismissed the council members for a brief recess.
The meeting resumed roughly 15 minutes later.
Rene Rosechild, an attorney living in nearby Brighton, told the Colorado Times Recorder at the event that the conditions with ICE and the current administration’s immigration policy remind her of the persecution her ancestors faced under Nazi Germany.
“I’m probably the only person here who is a direct descendant of a Holocaust survivor, and we all like to think that if we lived in Europe in the 30s, we all would have been hiding Jews in our attic,” Rosechild said. ”Would we really? Because as far as I’m concerned, the immigrants in the United States of America are equivalent to the Jews in Nazi Germany, and the government lies. It’s all lies. None of our problems are caused by immigrants; on the contrary, we need immigrants in America.”
Allison Chilton is a Douglas County resident who grew up in a rural community in North Texas. Chilton said that some have tried to paint anti-ICE demonstrators as “hyper-woke Denver liberals” and that “nothing could be further from the truth.”
“Let me tell you about myself: I grew up in North Texas, in a rural town that’s not unlike Hudson. It was small, but not too far away from a big city. So I kind of know what it’s like to be in an outskirt, rural city,” Chilton told CTR. “I attended four years of a conservative, evangelical Christian college. I currently live in Douglas County, and my representative is Lauren Boebert, which I share with part of this town. That being said, I am not the model of the ‘hyper-woke Denver liberal’ that some would make us all out to be. They think that we’re all a bunch of outside agitators coming in here to harass small-town America, and nothing could be further from the truth.”
The Colorado Times Recorder spoke with Maria, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation, who said that her husband was currently being detained at the Aurora detention facility.
According to Maria, her husband was going through the process of obtaining citizenship when he was detained by ICE officials. He has been detained for three months.
Maria said she and her daughter speak with her husband every day, and that the conditions in the facility are worse than previously reported.
“Sometimes the air conditioning doesn’t work; [my husband] is worried about tuberculosis,” Maria said.
Maria said her husband first told her about the TB outbreak one week ago and that more cases of tuberculosis have gone unreported by the facility. CTR cannot independently verify Maria’s claims about the number of cases of TB, outside of one case reported to the Adams County Health Department, which is investigating the facility over the matter but is being blocked by ICE.
Similar allegations have been made by others detained at the GEO facility in Aurora.
CTR also spoke with Jeanette Vizguerra, an immigrants’ rights activist who was detained by ICE as recently as last year.
Vizguerra said that the situation inside ICE facilities has always been bad, but has gotten worse in recent years.
“I’ve been fighting my case for 17 years. I’ve been in detention four times,” Vizguerra explains. “Three times at the GEO detention facility in Aurora and one time in an El Paso processing center.”
Vizguerra said that people call some of the facilities “coolers.”
“During my first time, it was very cold; the AC was working overtime for 24 hours, supposedly to not spread viruses,” Vizguerra said. “The AC is never clean; disease spreads; people have respiratory problems. There is one shower with 80 people or more taking showers all day. The room was never dry. People sometimes pick up fungal infections because the area is never disinfected. People get very sick and never receive good medicine.”
Vizguerra said that during her recent detainment, there were people there with heart conditions, diabetes, and cancer who were not receiving adequate medical care.
Vizguerra added that the conditions at the facility have only made health concerns worse. Detainees are given two uniforms and one blanket. Laundry is only done once a week, so detainees have resorted to washing clothes in the bathroom sinks with small bottles of shampoo from the commissary.
During comments at the Hudson meeting, one resident from Loveland urged the council to do everything in their power to block the facility.
The Lovelander told the council that she had been speaking before the council for several months now and that procedural changes have made it more difficult to gain clarity as to the new facility.
“From my personal experience, trying to research this has been like detective work, trying to figure out what’s in the minutes, what you all decided on,” she said, referring to an executive session from back in January for which the minutes have yet to be made public. “That shouldn’t be how any of our elected officials work. Transparency should be open for all. The minutes for that January public service meeting have yet to be published.”
Other speakers added that Hudson’s population is majority Hispanic and that she hopes the council takes that into consideration.
“Because, me being a first-generation Mexican-American, I live in fear with my passport and my birth certificate in my purse,” she said. “So if I were someone that was dealing with asylum status or temporary status, I would be scared out of my mind. So what I ask is for all of you to do is to please be more transparent in your work.”
Justin, a man from Henderson, Colorado, also urged the council to wield its authority to put up roadblocks for the facility, adding that this is a humanitarian issue.
“GEO Group has been named in numerous lawsuits for inhumane treatment of Haitians, including physical and sexual abuse, unsanitary living conditions, forced labor, solitary confinement, malnourishment, and preventing access to health care,” Justin told the council. “GEO Group has been a defendant in an ongoing class-action lawsuit regarding its use of forced labor, and they have also tried to sue Colorado to nullify a law requiring routine health and safety inspections of facilities.”
Justin, as well as other speakers, argued that Hudson would not see any meaningful improvement in unemployment, pointing to studies on how rural prisons and detention centers affect the local economy.
One resident of Hudson who did not give their name argued that the facility, which would hold 1,200 people, would strain Hudson’s water systems, emergency services, and utility rates.
What are elected officials saying?
The Adams County Health Department (ACHD) announced on Tuesday that it confirmed a case of tuberculosis (TB) from a detainee at the Aurora facility.
Adams County Health Department said in a statement: “GEO Aurora ICE Processing Center has not provided all of the information or access necessary for ACHD and Denver Health Tuberculosis Clinic to complete the necessary public health investigation.”
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson denied that ACHD had a confirmed case of TB.
The Town of Hudson put out a statement on Wednesday that it was aware of the recent announcement regarding the use of the Hudson Correctional Facility as a detention facility.
Hudson’s mayor, Joe Hammock, declined to respond to questions from CTR.
According to Hudson officials, the town has not received detailed operational information directly from federal agencies, including an operational timeline, number of detainees or staff, utility demand projections, medical/emergency service needs, or length or duration of operations.
State Rep. Yara Zokaie (D-Fort Collins) spoke before the Town Council.
“I’m here as a representative from Fort Collins because this issue is one that I hear about in every community in Colorado and is certainly one of statewide concern,” Zokaie said. “ICE’s cruelty, in particular, their treatment of those in detention centers.”
Zokaie said that she has been speaking about the conditions in these facilities for decades.
“We have noted many human rights and civil rights violations in the center in Aurora, but what we are seeing here today and this rise of extremism and cruelty certainly gives us a greater sense of urgency to act,” Zokaie added. “Our neighbors’ constitutional rights are blatantly being violated — their First Amendment rights, Fourth Amendment rights, the right to due process — and in detention centers, certainly Eighth Amendment rights for committing cruel and illegal punishment. People are being snatched from the street by masked agents with no identification in unmarked vehicles and are not being told where they are going.”
Zokaie said she believes Colorado and the United States are facing a crisis.
“People in ICE’s custody have begged for medical help and have been ignored until it was too late,” Zokaie said. “In court filings, it is noted that food served to children is contaminated with worms and mold, that families are going hungry, children are malnourished, and staff belittles and mocks them when they’re begging for help. There have been at least 52 deaths since 2025 in ICE’s custody. There are widespread reports of delays and denials in medical care.”
Zokaie sits on the Judiciary Committee of Colorado’s General Assembly and has heard testimony from family members of those in GEO’s ICE detention facilities.
“I’ve heard hours and hours of testimony of stories from these detention centers,” Zokaie said. “It was a letter from someone in the center that said, ‘I do not think the goal here is immigration enforcement. I think the goal is to kill us. That people are starved.’ The lack of medical care is causing detainees to be at the brink of death, and [this person shared with me that] once they are on the brink of death is when they are sent out of the country, so that their death will not be recorded.”
Zokaie said that the level of cruelty has risen to the point that “my Republican colleagues are expressing concern.”
Zokaie added that her colleagues across the aisle who typically disagree with her on immigration policy are concerned by “the lack of medical attention, the lack of training, and bring with it disregard for human dignity.”
Zokaie told the Town Council that they have the right to block these immigration centers.
After the Council meeting, CTR spoke again with Zokaie and state Sen. Julie Gonzales (D-Denver).
They both said they came out to speak against the expansion of ICE detention facilities in Colorado.
“I was first here in Hudson months ago when news first broke that this Hudson Correctional Center was being considered for potential immigration detention expansion,” Gonzales told CTR. “I joined hundreds of people then when it was freezing cold, and now join these people here today who are demanding that council don’t just wring their hands and say, ‘Oh, if only there were something that we could do or that could be done,’ but instead urge council to use the power that they have.”
Gonzales said the municipalities are empowered under the state Constitution to govern to block detention centers.
“At the state Capitol, we hear all the time that local control is paramount to these elected officials,” Gonzales said. “What better time to use their local control than now? They have that power under the 10th Amendment of the Constitution.”
Zokaie added that she believes there is a “suite of options available to local governments to block detention centers in their communities, as well as to have oversight and regulation over those detention centers.”
“If that has not been explicitly clear, however, I will say I think that anybody not exercising those powers because it’s not clear is saying that as an excuse,” Zokaie said. “I have not seen a willingness and a backbone to actually take any sort of action, and rather, what I am seeing is acting as if that power is not available in order to allow ICE to enact cruelty.”
Zokaie said she has committed to passing legislation to make that authority more explicitly clear to local governments. Zokaie called ICE and the federal government’s immigration policy “fascism, plain and simple.”
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has ramped up immigration enforcement activity across the country in Trump’s second term. According to reporting from The Guardian, there have been 11 fatal shootings by federal immigration officials since Trump’s second term began, including the high-profile killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. The Human Rights Watch has additionally reported that 52 people have died in ICE custody since January 20, 2025. However, there are reports that ICE has deported people with worsening health to avoid documenting deaths in custody.
According to data from the Human Rights Watch, between January 2025 and January 2026, there was a roughly 140% increase in the annual mortality of those in ICE custody compared to the prior year.
There have been two high-profile killings of civilians at the hands of ICE agents over the past week, one in Maine and one in Houston, Texas.
Gonzales said that recent events have only added further urgency to this conversation.
“It is shocking to me that the same week that ICE murdered two people in broad daylight, we are having this conversation here in Hudson,” Gonzales concluded. “How bad does it have to get? Are short-term economic gains that this community may be lulled into accepting worth the moral stain that this detention center will leave on this community?”
Colorado’s two U.S. Senators, Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, oppose the Hudson jail, while Colorado Gov. Jared Polis has yet to take a stand on it. Gabe Evans, the U.S. Representative whose district includes the prison, supports it.
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