Colorado’s new immigration jail
Plus: cash assistance for Denver’s single-parent families
The private prison contractor, the GEO Group, announced this week that ICE is going to pay the company potentially up to a half a billion dollars to re-open an actual former prison so they can use it to lock up immigrants.
The facility is being called “Big Horn” and it’s about 30 miles outside Denver, in a town called Hudson. The former prison is owned by a Chicago-based real estate company that expects to make nearly $1 million a month by leasing it to the GEO Group.
The facility has the capacity to hold almost 1,200 people, which is roughly the size of an immigration jail run by the GEO Group in Aurora that can hold around 1,500 people.
The Aurora facility is the only other large-scale ICE detention site in Colorado, so this new jail will almost double ICE’s detention capacity in the state. And this comes as the Trump administration is continuing its immigration crackdown and locking up more and more people.
The Aurora facility and other ICE facilities around the country have repeatedly for years faced allegations of keeping people in inhumane conditions and neglecting their medical needs. But it’s been difficult to hold ICE and its contractors accountable.
State and local officials have limited power over immigration facilities like the one in Aurora and like the new one coming to Hudson, since they’re privately owned and operated by companies working for the federal government.
In Aurora, the city council recently passed ordinances to try to require the GEO Group to allow random, unannounced health and safety inspections at the detention facility there. And state lawmakers passed a bill this year to expand the state’s power to do health and safety inspections at immigration jails.
But it’s not clear if those rules can actually be enforced or if they’ll hold up in court.
ICE recently updated its detention standards to remove references to contractors having to comply with state and local laws. And the GEO Group is suing Colorado over the recent health and safety inspection law.
Federal judges in other states have ruled that state authorities can inspect privately-run immigration facilities. But the judge in the Colorado case has a record that suggests he supports the Trump administration’s immigration policies.
The lawsuit is still in the early stages, but no matter how it turns out, it’s the kind of case that’s likely to get appealed and it could ultimately end up at the Supreme Court.
NEED TO KNOW
💵 Progressive policy advocate Kayla Frawley recently started a project called the Second Fund that gives cash grants to single-parent families in Denver who need help paying expenses between $55 to $555.
A third of kids in Denver live in single-parent households, and those families are under even more pressure from the rising cost of living that’s affecting all Coloradans.
Relying on a single income means limited resources and a lack of stability. And even when single-parent families tap into public assistance, those gaps can still exist.
Small, one-time costs can snowball into bigger financial emergencies. A missed car payment can result in late fees. A credit card purchase or a payday loan to make ends meet ends up costing more because of interest.
I talked with Kayla about how the Second Fund is addressing those issues:
COMING UP
🫣 Last week I said I would have some original reporting to share this week – which is the same thing I had said the week before. Unfortunately, that reporting still isn’t ready to share. I’m still trying to get answers to some final questions, and I’ve had family in town this week, which left me less time for work than I expected. This has been an important lesson about the pitfalls of making promises about future reporting. I’ll do better in the future.