AURORA | Immigrant rights advocates gathered outside the ICE detention facility Wednesday night in Aurora to hear accounts of alleged abuse from people detained inside the center.
The press conference and protest focused on copies of complaints alleging civil rights violations, medical neglect, and lack of access to adequate nutrition by people who were held at the Aurora immigration detention facility in northwest Aurora.
The ICE jail, which is operated by the private prison company GEO Group, has for years faced numerous accusations by inmates of neglect, mistreatment, and human rights violations by staff.
Immigrant advocates, including Casa de Paz and the American Friends Service Committee, worked in tandem with the Shut Down GEO Aurora Coalition to make the presentation. That same coalition released an earlier report of 56 complaints made by people detained at the facility. The most common issues detailed, both in a report released earlier this month and at tonight’s event, were denial of medical care, abusive behavior from staff, and abundant cases of neglect and poor nutrition.
On Wednesday, immigrant rights advocates released a link to numerous recorded 911 calls from the detention center they say illustrates many of their complaints.
The facility has been the site of ongoing protests and demonstrations for several years, with complaints sharply increasing since the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second term.
One of the many groups ICE contracts to operate its detention facilities, GEO Group, is involved in a legal fight with several states, including Colorado, for failing to allow health and safety inspections of the sites.
In June, a more recent controversy erupted when the Adams County Health Department reported that there was a confirmed case of tuberculosis at the GEO ICE facility. The following month, a guard at the GEO facility shot a 21-year-old demonstrator in the foot after a verbal disagreement in the parking lot.
Local and state agencies in Colorado previously told the Sentinel that both federal officials and GEO representatives were not forthcoming about the tuberculosis case and that they were “not provided all of the information necessary to determine whether more cases might exist.” State officials have sued the GEO group in an effort to gain access and details about the tuberculosis case.
Officials from the Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday night denied the new allegations of inadequate conditions at the GEO facility in Aurora.
“Claims that there are subprime conditions at ICE detention centers are FALSE,” said a DHS spokesperson in an email to the Sentinel. “ICE has higher detention standards than most U.S. prisons that hold actual U.S. citizens. For many illegal aliens this is the best healthcare they have received their entire lives.”
The spokesperson claimed that it was “longstanding practice to provide medical care from the moment an alien enters ICE custody”; however, several interviews with detainees paint a different picture.
Allegations of numerous abuses of inmates
Dr. Maureen Daly, a volunteer with the immigrant rights coalition who organized the event, said she was appalled by what she had heard of the conditions inside the Aurora facility. Daly is now a retired public health expert and a primary care physician.
“We stand here tonight, next to a facility that is disregarding the 1,400 plus people inside, despite ample resources in the community to provide high-quality care,” Daly told the crowd of roughly 30 people.
She relayed reports of people detained who had skin infections that the staff failed to treat, cases of shingles that were borderline debilitating, and minor injuries left to fester until they became a health emergency.
“For what reason? It probably has something to do with GEO maximizing their profit margins, and it also has to do with [the Trump] administration’s aim of making things so unbearable that our immigrant community decides to self-deport,” Daly said.
Homeland Security and GEO officials have consistently reported mistreatment of inmates. Previous inspections by local members of Congress have often been inconclusive about widespread abuses but have routinely made public dubious incidents and data in congressional office reports to the public.
“The repercussions of delayed care are apparent,” Daly continued. Daly recounted an incident last month where a gas leak was reported. Although people in the facility experienced headaches and vomiting, ICE officials dismissed the incident as a “hoax.”
One of the organizing groups, Casa de Paz, works to facilitate the reunification of migrants with their friends and families and to provide resources for those in need. An Aurora resident who works with Casa De Paz, Mariana Ortega Rivera, told the Sentinel that she has personally witnessed people recently released from the facility with cases of shingles so severe “they could barely move their arm.”
Ortega Rivera added that the treatment of LGBTQ+ detainees, especially transgender detainees, was particularly abusive.
The facility recently closed what is colloquially referred to as a “trans-pod,” a unit where gender-diverse people are held while in detention. Following several executive orders from Trump, transgender people in ICE custody were given the option of solitary confinement or being assigned to a unit that conflicts with their gender identity. Reports from immigrant rights groups have alleged widespread abuse, particularly of a physical and sexual nature, against LGBTQ+ inmates. That abuse occurred both by other detained individuals and ICE and Border Patrol staff.
One of the main speakers at the event Wednesday evening was Hossein Batooie, an Iranian-American who was granted legal status in the United States by a federal immigration court in 2004.
Batooie was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in June 2025. He was then held for 10 months in the jail.
“Since 2004, I’ve lived here, paid my taxes, and I’ve been an excellent citizen with absolutely no criminal record, not even a driving ticket,” said Batooie. “One day, around 6:30 in the morning, I was going to soccer practice… I saw five federal agents inside my property, in my backyard, and they told me, ‘We have to take you.’”
Batooie had been living and working in the U.S. legally for over two decades by that point. He worked for years in the service and construction industries before he founded an airport shuttle business.
According to Batooie, the arresting ICE agents told him he’d see a judge “tomorrow.”
“That tomorrow never came,” he said. “I was here [the Aurora detention facility] for 10 months. I spent approximately $70,000 on lawyer fees.”
Batooie was released in April of this year after his legal team submitted a writ of habeas corpus.
“They absolutely had no probable cause to detain me,” Batooie continued. “They had no probable cause to keep me in detention.”
Batooie told the Sentinel that the way people were mistreated in the Aurora GEO facility stuck with him and, in his opinion, violated the constitutional rights of detainees.
He described migrants being placed in solitary confinement for months at a time, a tactic he believes was designed with the express purpose of having them sign self-deportation papers.
One friend of his was placed in solitary confinement for six weeks before they caved and signed the papers. After Batooie was released, he discovered his friend had been deported to Iran where the government subsequently captured and executed him.
GEO staff regularly flouted the constitutional and civil rights of people in their custody, Batooie told the Sentinel.
“For example, it is my constitutional right to talk, to freedom of speech, [multiple guards and managers at the GEO facility] said, ‘It’s funny that you still think you’re still in the United States. This facility isn’t governed by the U.S. Constitution; it’s governed by GEO”, Batooie recalled. Batooie believes GEO employees are trained to say that, arguing that he heard similar comments from both guards and managers at the facility.
Batooie said he was denied his heart medication, which he brought with him for a medical condition.
“I was denied [my heart medication] five times,” Batooie said. “One of those times, it took 45 days, and then they substituted my original medication with something similar.”
Batooie called the medical services available at the detention facility a “joke.”
“The full capacity of this facility is approximately 1,500 people. They have two doctors. That’s it,” Batooie said.
In a 2026 July inspection report by Aurora Democratic Congressperson Jason Crow, GEO officials reported 36 medical positions at the facility, which prison officials said were staffed at about 85% capacity.
Batooie said most interactions with nurses and medical staff were demeaning. Batooie alleges that the medical staff neglected serious conditions and delayed treatment options, which often exacerbated health issues.
Beyond the issue of medical care, Batooie detailed cases of discrimination based on religion and ethnicity.
According to Batooie, during Ramadan, Muslim detainees were routinely dismissed. When one detainee asked when food was slated to arrive as they were fasting, Batooie recalled a guard telling the man, “If you are Muslim, then shut the f*ck up. You and your type of people are the reason we are fighting a Muslim country.”
Batooie added that migrants who didn’t speak English were treated particularly badly by staff, especially if they were Latino.
Although federal officials deny claims of human rights abuses and neglect, local government and health officials have been denied access to assess the health and safety of these facilities.
On Wednesday, a spokesperson for Homeland Security sharply rebuked the inmate allegations in Aurora, and across the country.
“All detainees are provided with three meals a day, clean water, clothing, bedding, showers, soap, and toiletries,” officials said in an email statement. “Illegal aliens also have access to phones to communicate with their family members and lawyers.”
Officials repeated assertions that detainees should self-deport, claiming a $3,000 offer to leave the country, which includes a free-flight out of the United States.
“We encourage every person here illegally to take advantage of this offer and reserve the chance to come back to the U.S. the right legal way to live the American dream,” officials said. “If not, you will be arrested and deported without a chance to return.”
Criminals having bad things to say about their captors, color me shocked. I bet they also have explanations about how they are not guilty of their crimes and are not responsible for their circumstances, but are actually heros of the proletariat.