On Wednesday, Together Colorado, a progressive advocacy organization, hosted a “People’s Hearing” on a proposed ICE jail in Hudson, 30 minutes east of Denver. The hearing offered legal and ethical rebukes of the detention center to a crowd of 50 people, featuring faith leaders, legal experts, and activists. It immediately preceded a Hudson City Council meeting that would discuss the issue further.
The proposed detention ICE facility, called the Big Horn Detention Center, would be operated by the GEO Group, which also runs Colorado’s only other ICE jail located in Aurora.
David Seligman, a lawyer working with Together Colorado to bring a lawsuit against the GEO Group, spoke on the legal issues involved.
“The GEO Group, a for-profit prison company, wants to open a 1,200-bed federal immigration detention center here,” he explained at the event. “The problem for GEO is that this use is simply not allowed under Hudson’s own land development code, its zoning laws.”
The proposed site is within a region labeled as an I-3 zone, which, according to Hudson municipal codes, “generates the most noise, pollution, and other noxious uses out of all three (3) types of industrial districts. Potential uses include recycling facilities and cement production.”
Seligman’s lawsuit argues that an immigration detention center is not allowed to be placed within the proposed I-3 zone. Seligman told the crowd that “Section 1662 of the code says that a use not identified specifically under the code is not permitted. A detention center is nowhere listed in the code, and it is not permitted under Hudson’s current zoning laws.”
Andrea Loya, the executive director of Casa de Paz, a nonprofit that helps those recently released from the Aurora ICE facility, stated that if the Big Horn Detention Center opens, then her organization will move to help those detainees as well.
She further said that the “GEO Group Inc. is a corporation that is known for abusing people. It is known for abusing the folks that it supposedly houses.”
Last month, the Aurora detention center faced heavy backlash after denying health inspectors access to enter and examine the facility in response to reports of a tuberculosis (TB) outbreak. Further information about the TB outbreak is scarce, as “answers about who, how many, and where they are today have not been provided, while state, county, and local governments point fingers of blame and the contractor that runs the facility simply refuses to cooperate with anyone outside of ICE,” explained Colorado Public Radio.
At the hearing, Loya shared the story of a detainee who went into the Aurora facility as a fully able-bodied person, and “came out without being able to lift even 10 pounds. … He has some neurological disease now that he acquired from being in detention.” Loya cited her concerns that the Hudson facility “absolutely does not have the means to take care of people and people’s medical needs. If they do not have those needs met in Aurora, they will not have those needs met when the closest hospital is in Brighton.”
The GEO website states, “The support services GEO provides on behalf of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement include around-the-clock access to medical care, in-person and virtual legal and family visitation, general and legal library access, dietician-approved meals, religious and specialty diets, recreational amenities, and opportunities to practice their religious beliefs.” Numerous findings from the press (such as the TB outbreak) and accounts from those detained in GEO centers cast doubt on the functionality of these services.
“A detention center is not just a building — it’s a statement,” said Pastor Ariceli Berdugo, Community United Methodist Church in Keenesburg, about 10 miles east of Hudson, in a news release. “It tells every immigrant family whether they are seen as neighbors or as a threat. But I believe we can make a different statement. Let us choose love over fear, compassion over cruelty, justice over injustice, unity over division, and peace over violence.”
Federal and state officials representing Hudson have taken a variety of position on the proposal. Jared Polis has yet to issue a position on it. Opponents include Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper. Rep. Gabe Evans (R-CO), whose district includes Hudson, has expressed support for the jail.
Together Colorado Executive Director Meghan Carrier stated in the release: “We continue to call on the Town of Hudson to stand with our communities and use its authority to protect the dignity and safety of all by regulating the proposed Big Horn ICE Detention Center. ICE is not trustworthy to run that facility in a way that upholds human dignity. We believe another future is possible, and we’re organizing together to build it.”
If the Big Horn Detention Center is completed and becomes operational, the 1,200 detainees would significantly increase the population of the city of Hudson, which is 1,615.
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