Conor McCormick-Cavanagh
Audio By Carbonatix
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) wants more details concerning Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) plans to occupy detention facilities in Colorado as the federal agency continues to escalate immigrant arrests and deportations.
A local chapter of the ACLU filed a lawsuit to obtain ICE records in the U.S. District Court on Tuesday, September 23, the day before a deadly shooting at a detention facility in Dallas that’s fueling an already heated debate over what ideals are inciting political violence.
“They’re proposing to spend billions and billions of dollars to expand detention across the country,” says ACLU of Colorado legal director Tim Macdonald. “That’s taxpayer dollars, and we the people are entitled to know how they’re planning to spend all those dollars, and to make sure they’re not going to do it in ways that perpetuate the civil rights violations that have been rampant at their existing facilities.”
ICE plans to open new detention facilities across the country and to increase its detention capacity to more than 100,000 people, according to public records published by the Washington Post in August. Macdonald says that the ACLU is suing to have ICE “actually show us what they’re planning to do in the state of Colorado.”
The ACLU revealed in July that ICE was considering opening as many as six new detention centers in Colorado. Macdonald says that the ACLU of Colorado first requested public records from ICE about its “ramp-up plans” in February, shortly after President Donald Trump took office. But by the time the organization received the requested information nearly seven months later, it was already out of date, according to Macdonald.
“And then they were pretty heavily redacted. We had to push back, we got a less redacted version in August. By the time we got them, they’re pretty stale and they’re just proposals,” Macdonald says of the public records ICE released. “They’re not the actual plan. They don’t specify anything about what ICE is contemplating and what ICE is going to do.”
ICE has a detention facility in Aurora, the only one it currently has in Colorado so far. The facility is run by the GEO Group, a private prison company, and is currently holding an estimated 1,300 to 1,400 immigrants, including Mexican activist Jeanette Vizguerra. Nationwide, ICE has more an estimated 60,000 people in detention, according to the New York Times, as a result of Trump’s mass deportation plan.
At least three more ICE detention facilities are planned for Colorado, with sights set on the towns of Walsenburg, Ignacio and Hudson. The expansion would triple the statewide detention capacity for ICE, allowing the agency to incarcerate just over 4,000 immigrants in Colorado at a time. Macdonald says that among the details the ACLU wants to know are the expected total capacity of the new facilities and ICE’s timeline for opening them.
“What is the capacity of different facilities planned in Colorado? When are they planning to open them and in what order?” Macdonald says. “What are they doing to make sure they won’t have the same problems that they’re having at the existing detention facility in Aurora?”
Operations at the Aurora ICE facility have led to several lawsuits in recent years, including one for labor rights violations against detainees in work programs in 2014, two wrongful deaths in 2017 and 2019 and another for denying Congressman Jason Crow access to the facility this year despite a law he helped pass in 2019 after he was denied entry to check on a disease outbreak.
The Democratic congressional delegation representing Aurora confirmed in August that ICE shared plans to expand at least into Hudson. Crow and Senator Michael Bennet told Westword in August that ICE has not yet confirmed any additional expansion plans. Hudson Town Manager Bryce Lange tells Westword that the federal government has still “not shared any plans” about the detention facility planned in his small town.
Macdonald says that the public and the ACLU “don’t have any of the details” on the three upcoming ICE facilities. “That’s why we filed the [Freedom of Information Act] request…they’re keeping the actual documents away from the public about what the plans are.”
Shooting at ICE Facility
Amid the Trump administration’s unprecedented increase in immigrant detention and deportation, United States citizens have attacked ICE agents and facilities, including the recent incidents in Texas. Federal law enforcement has labeled the incidents as extremism and targeted or ideologically motivated violence, with the Trump administration blaming “the radical left Democrats.”
On the morning of Wednesday, September 24, a sniper identified as 29-year-old Joshua Jahn opened fire at a Dallas ICE detention facility, killing one detainee and wounding two others. According to dederal law enforcement, the shooter wrote “ANTI-ICE” in what looks like marker on his bullets. Authorities believe he was aiming for ICE agents and are calling it a “targeted attack.”
Trump tied the incident to the fatal shooting on September 10 of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk, who was killed by a sniper in Utah one day before he was supposed to come to Colorado. The president says the two incidents are proof that “radical” left-wing rhetoric is inciting violence.
“This violence is the result of the radical left Democrats constantly demonizing law enforcement, calling for ICE to be demolished, and comparing ICE Officers to ‘Nazis,'” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Wednesday. “The continuing violence from radical left terrorists, in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, must be stopped.”
In July, eleven people ambushed ICE agents at the Prairieland Detention Facility in north Texas with tactical gear and weapons and shot an agent. Ten people were immediately arrested, including six women who were arraigned on Monday, September 22, and a former Marine who was on the run for more than a week afterwards. According to ICE, the group intended to “vandalize the facility and disrupt operations there.” After the arrest of the last suspect, ICE’s parent agency, the Department of Homeland security, labeled them as a “violent extremist group.”
The ambush came less than a week after an incident in Southern California where two San Diego women attacked ICE agents during an arrest, and a day after a man shot a Border Patrol agent in McAllen, Texas, a border town. These incidents all came a month after ICE Out! protests broke out nationwide, including a large, chaotic one in Denver, in support of protesters outraged by ICE raids in Los Angeles.
Trump’s aggressive deployment of ICE this year has led to chaotic and at times violent enforcement by agents. In Denver and Aurora, ICE agents reportedly raided apartments with smoke and flash grenades. Videos on social media have shown agents arresting immigrants on the street, including tourists, and local and national media have shared stories about ICE deporting long-time community members and separating families, like a mother, father and small child who were arrested in a court house in Denver while checking in for an immigration check-in. On September 12, ICE agents fatally shot a Mexican immigrants outside Chicago as he was trying to flee an arrest. Alongside other federal agents, ICE used tear gas and pepper balls to disperse a protest in Chicago the following week, with some protesters alleging they were dragged and tackled by ICE.
According to a DHS press release from Monday, September 22, ICE agents are facing a “1,000 percent” increase in assaults against them, although the federal agency didn’t release numbers to back that up. DHS released the stat as part of a condemnation of California Governor Gavin Newsom’s law banning ICE from wearing masks during arrests and raids in the state.
In a story by Axios Denver from Tuesday, September 23, Denver Police Chief Ron Thomas responded to questions about ICE advertising to recruit agents in Denver, saying it’s “a terrible job for terrible pay.” He said that the federal agency won’t be able to compete with recruiting efforts by the Denver Police, which needs to bring on more than 160 new officers next year amid a city budget deficit.
