This story was first published at Colorado Newsline.
DENVER | The apartment complexes in Denver owned by Highlands Real Estate Investment Trust offer what one building’s website calls “modern, approachable luxury,” with amenities like private patios, fitness centers, bike storage and an onsite dog wash.
But another Colorado property owned by the Chicago-based trust could soon offer its occupants a much different experience: Highlands REIT’s assets include the dormant Big Horn Correctional Facility in Hudson, north of Denver, which private-prison company The GEO Group is under contract to operate as a new Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center.
Clergy members and immigrant rights activists demonstrated Monday outside two of the company’s properties in Denver, urging Highlands REIT not to profit off of President Donald Trump’s mass-deportation plans and end its relationship with ICE and GEO Group.
“This facility does not meet who you claim to be everywhere else you do business,” said Rev. Lindsay Batesmith, pastor of Rejoice Lutheran Church in Erie, about 15 miles west of Hudson. “When you home people, you promise to be their shelter, you promise to help them build community with their neighbors.”
“All we are asking is that you give the same care to the potential detainees that ICE would take to this facility as well,” Batesmith continued. “ICE is not trustworthy to run that facility in a way that promotes human dignity, and we ask that you would stop.”
Located about 30 miles northeast of Denver and formerly known as the Hudson Correctional Facility, Big Horn is a 1,200-bed prison that operated for a span of just five years after its 2009 opening. Since early last year, it has been listed among several potential new sites for ICE detention under consideration in Colorado.
An Immigration and Customs Enforcement contract for “comprehensive detention services” at the facility was issued to The GEO Group on Dec. 1, according to documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado. The value and terms of the contract are redacted in the documents. A separate $39 million contract was previously awarded for the six-month period beginning in April 2025, but the prison remained empty.
As demonstrators held signs, chanted and sang hymns outside the Chamber Lofts and Buerger Brothers Lofts on Champa Street in Downtown Denver Monday, speakers addressed the Trump administration’s aggressive crackdown in Minneapolis, including the shooting deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal immigration agents.
Denver apartment buildings owned by Highlands REIT
Chamber Lofts, 1726 Champa St.
Buerger Brothers Lofts, 1742 Champa St.
Kenilworth Court, 1560 N. Downing St.
Tennyson44, 4390 Tennyson St.
The Detroit, 1504 Detroit St.
Detroit Terraces, 1530 Detroit St.
The Lafayette, 1575 Lafayette St.
The Muse, 2270 S. University Blvd.
Rev. Ben Konecny of Greeley’s First Congregational Church said a clear majority of Americans stand opposed to “the brutality and the immorality of ICE.”
“Apparently, there are companies who still are willing to seek profit at any cost,” Konecny said. “At the cost of communities, at the cost of churches, at the cost of families being ripped apart, at the cost of the dreams of people’s children being turned into nightmares. At the cost of law-abiding citizens laying dead in our streets.”
Highlands REIT did not return messages seeking comment Monday. Konecny said he and other clergy members from Weld County have asked to meet with the company’s CEO, Robert Lange.
In his second term, Trump has pledged to carry out the “largest domestic deportation operation in American history,” aiming to remove all of the estimated 12 million immigrants in the country without permanent legal status, regardless of how long they have been in the country, the legal status of their family members or whether they have criminal records.
Colorado is currently home to only one ICE detention center, an Aurora facility also operated by GEO Group, which has long been the target of criticism from activists over allegations of inhumane conditions and dehumanizing treatment. Last year, after congressional Republicans passed $45 billion in new funding for immigration detention, GEO Group chairman George Zoley spoke during an earnings call about the “attractive opportunity for investors” presented by “the unprecedented growth opportunities we anticipate will materialize over the balance of this year and next year.”
In addition to its Colorado assets, Highlands REIT owns properties in California, Illinois, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Activists said Monday they planned to canvass tenants at the seven Denver apartment buildings owned by the company as they aim to ramp up their pressure campaign.
“We believe that they should know that the money they are paying (in) rent … is going to a company who is seeking to make significant profit from their dealings with ICE,” Konecny said.