AURORA | Four members of Colorado’s Democratic congressional delegation are demanding answers from the Trump administration after immigration officials were unable to provide basic information during an oversight visit to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Aurora earlier this month.
In a letter sent this week to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Acting ICE Director Patrick Lyons, Aurora Democratic Rep. Jason Crow, alongside Democratic representatives Diana DeGette, Joe Neguse and Brittany Pettersen outlined a sweeping list of 22 questions about the facility’s operations, ranging from detainee population counts to medical staffing and reports of self-deportation pressure.
The House members said their Aug. 11 visit to the GEO Group–operated Aurora detention facility left them with few answers despite repeated attempts to obtain information.
“In making our intent to visit known, we also requested that ICE personnel attend the visit in order to receive and respond to our questions in a fulsome manner,” the members said in the letter. “Despite the Department ‘vetting’ this request and sending multiple staff from ICE to this visit, they failed to have staff present who could answer the majority of the questions and repeatedly encouraged us to instead email ICE’s Office of Congressional Relations.”
Crow said that practice hinders his ability to conduct meaningful oversight.
“The inevitable delays caused by routing our questions through OCR … prevent meaningful oversight from taking place in a timely manner,” lawmakers wrote.
Questions about detainee conditions
The six-page letter seeks details about who is being held at the Aurora facility, how detainees are classified, and whether detainees have been subjected to water outages, air conditioning failures, or changes in access to phone calls and legal assistance.
Among the questions:
• The total population of detainees, sorted by gender.
• The percentage of detainees who do not have violent criminal convictions.
• The frequency and duration of water and air conditioning outages this summer.
• Costs that detainees must pay for phone calls and restrictions on phone access.
• The number of medical and mental health staff on-site and average wait times for care.
• How often detainees are placed in segregation and for how long.
The lawmakers also cited reports that detainees have been pressured by ICE staff to self-deport, sometimes through repeated visits late at night. They asked whether such practices are sanctioned by agency policy and whether detainees are fully informed of the legal consequences of voluntary return.
A sign Crow and others saw posted in the facility last week read: “Do you want to return home? Requesting to return home now may give you the opportunity to legally enter the United States in the future.”
The delegation asked whether ICE officers follow a script when detainees inquire, and what languages the program is available in.
Oversight battles
The Aurora detention center has long been a flashpoint for debates over immigration enforcement, detainee treatment and congressional oversight. Crow, a former Army Ranger first elected in 2018, said he has visited the facility 10 times since taking office, and his staff has logged more than 70 visits. He regularly publishes reports on conditions inside.
In July, Crow sued the Trump administration after DHS denied him access for an unannounced visit, which he argued violated a federal law guaranteeing members of Congress immediate access to detention facilities.
The August tour, unlike the denied July visit, was announced in advance. That episode launched a federal lawsuit against the Trump administration.
Crow also has bi-partisan introduced legislation known as the Public Oversight of Detention Centers Act, which would codify the right of lawmakers and staff to make both announced and unannounced inspections. He previously pushed for the protections to be included in federal appropriations bills, but the standalone legislation would make them permanent.
“Whether an oversight visit is announced or unannounced, ICE is seemingly more prepared to ensure the spaces we see are mopped — in our case by detainees themselves — than they are with answering members’ questions regarding the treatment of individuals held in detention,” delegation members said in their letter.
The lawmakers set a deadline of Sept. 5 for the administration to respond.
Homeland Security and ICE officials were not immediately available for comment.
Expansion concerns
The Colorado Democrats also raised questions about potential expansion of immigration detention in the state. The letter asks ICE to confirm whether the Aurora facility will add nearly 200 beds, increasing capacity from 1,360 to 1,530 and whether additional facilities are under contract or consideration.
They pointed to local news reports that the former Hudson Correctional Facility in Weld County has been contracted for immigration detention and requested details on who would operate it, its capacity and funding. They also cited media reports that two other Colorado facilities at the former Huerfano County Correctional Center in Walsenburg and the Southern Ute Indian Adult Detention Center in Ignacio could be used to house immigrant detainees.
The delegation asked for confirmation of those reports and disclosure of contract terms.
History of scrutiny
The Aurora facility, one of the largest ICE detention centers, is operated by Florida-based private prison company GEO Group under contract with ICE. It has drawn scrutiny for years from activists, local officials and members of Congress over health care, staffing, and treatment of detainees.
In recent years, complaints have surfaced about inadequate medical care, long waits for treatment and deaths of detainees.
More recently, attorneys and immigrant rights advocates have raised alarms about access to legal counsel and the cost of phone calls.
In their letter, the Colorado congressional lawmakers noted that detainees are required to sign privacy release forms in order to communicate with their congressional offices. They said ICE staff recently prevented them from obtaining those forms during oversight visits, creating new struggles for casework.
“Efforts to create lags in the time it takes for members, and our staff, to gain access to this facility or to mail privacy release forms back and forth solely serves to delay this process until an individual has inevitably been transferred to another facility or been discouraged from seeking assistance,” according to the letter.
The delegation’s latest move escalates an ongoing clash with the Trump administration over congressional oversight. Crow has argued that the administration is unlawfully restricting access to federal facilities, while DHS has defended its procedures as necessary for security and scheduling.
For the four Democratic representatives, the Aurora detention center has become a focal point in their calls for transparency in immigration enforcement.
“Immigration detention facilities demand oversight and accountability to ensure that detainees are treated with dignity and respect,” the lawmakers wrote.
Crow said in July after being turned away from the Aurora ICE center that the clear effort of the Trump administration to conceal what they don’t want the public to see is only made worse by the recent behavior of ICE agents under Trump orders.
“They’re denying people fundamental due process rights, Crow said. “There are confirmed incidents around the country of federal agents showing up in unmarked vans without markings on their clothes, wearing masks and snatching people off of street corners because they look different or in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
He said with so much distraction and disinformation, the impromptu inspections are more critical than ever.
“I mean, this is such deeply troubling stuff, “ Crow said. “It goes to the foundation of what the founders of this country were concerned about. That’s why they put habeas corpus as one of the prominent parts of our constitution.”