But over a year into his presidency, Biden has not made good on his promise to shut down these facilities. And that's prompted Congressman Jason Crow, a Democrat whose 6th Congressional District includes the privately run Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Aurora, to press the Biden administration to make good on that campaign vow.
“Throughout my time conducting oversight of this facility, continued public health concerns underscore how privately run facilities fall short of our values as a nation," says Crow in reference to the Aurora detention facility, run by GEO Group through a contract with ICE. "As I’ve demanded more accountability from GEO Group and ICE, I continue to believe that we can never live up to those values so long as companies are incentivized to run for-profit detention centers. Ending federal contracts altogether with these facilities is a first and critical step to fixing our broken immigration system in this country."
On March 10, Crow and 107 other Democratic members of Congress, including Representative Pramila Jayapal of Washington and Representative Raúl Grajalva of Arizona as co-lead signatories, sent a letter to top-ranking Biden administration officials demanding that the administration stop expanding ICE detention and phase out its reliance on private, for-profit facilities. Representatives Diana DeGette and Joe Neguse, also Colorado Democrats, signed onto the letter, too.
"Studies consistently show that most people are best equipped to successfully complete their removal proceedings when they have full access to the support of their families and communities and legal representation. As you review the detention system, we ask that you halt the expansion of ICE detention and urge you to embrace community-based alternatives to detention,” the lawmakers wrote to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and ICE Acting Director Tae Johnson.
“Putting an end to these facilities is long overdue," says Crow, "and I hope the administration will quickly heed our calls to end these contracts.”
Elected in November 2018, Crow has spent much of his tenure in Congress pushing for more oversight at the Aurora Contract Detention Facility. Each week, Crow's office publishes reports on various aspects of the facility, such as how many detainees are being housed there and how many of them are COVID-positive. The Aurora facility, which today has a population hovering around 550, had a massive COVID outbreak among detainees in late January and early February. As of March 8, ten ICE detainees had COVID at the Aurora facility, according to ICE's website.
The facility has also been accused of medical neglect, including one instance that resulted in a detainee's death, and forced labor practices.
Rep. Crow wants the Biden administration to make good on a campaign promise.
Congressman Jason Crow's website
"The effort by these lawmakers to ban contractors is clearly another push to ‘Abolish ICE,' since they well know that ICE relies heavily on contractors to fulfill its vital mission, and has done so for several decades under both Democrat and Republican administrations," says Alexandra Wilkes, spokeswoman for the Day 1 Alliance, a trade association that represents companies in the business of contractor-operated corrections and detention, including GEO Group. "Every day contractor-operated facilities work closely with ICE to provide safe, humane conditions that uphold the dignity of the individuals making their way through the civil immigration process. Unserious political posturing does nothing to meet the needs of these individuals or the agencies tasked with these important responsibilities."
The Biden administration's delay in moving away from a reliance on private prison companies for detention has frustrated immigrant-rights advocates as well as lawmakers.
"He hasn't made good on that promise, and I think a big part of that is the issues at the border, the political complications that the state of the border has created for the administration. It has frankly complicated nearly every decision for them in the immigration context," says Jorge Loweree, policy director at the American Immigration Council; Loweree previously worked on immigration issues for Jared Polis when the now-governor was in the House of Representatives. "There are very serious political considerations that are at play that have undoubtedly impacted their decision to not make good on that campaign promise."
According to Loweree, a faction within the Biden administration wants to increase the number of detained immigrants "to use immigrant detention as a deterrent to change trends at the southern border."
In fact, the federal government and GEO Group renewed a contract for the Aurora Contract Detention Facility last October. And while local activists continue to call for the Aurora center to be closed, Loweree suggests it's unlikely that their demands will be met anytime soon.
"If the facility in Aurora is ever closed," he says, "I would anticipate that it would be closed due to action at the state or local level. I don't see any particular circumstance where the federal government closes that facility on its own, given where it is and its size and scale."
Westword has reached out to both ICE and GEO Group for comment on the letter; read it here.
This story has been updated to include the quote from Alexandra Wilkes.
