PERRY: What are Aurora ICE officials hiding that compels them to obstruct?

The old and new Trump administrations have long been too comfortable with secrecy, stonewalling and spin.

But the latest episode out of Aurora should alarm anyone who cares about the rule of law, the safety of human lives and the very foundations of American government.

Four members of Colorado’s congressional delegation showed up at an immigration detention center to perform oversight and walked away with almost no answers.

Everyone should be furious.

That’s pretty much what happened Aug. 11, when Colorado Democratic representatives Jason Crow, Diana DeGette, Joe Neguse and Brittany Pettersen visited the ICE detention facility in Aurora. Despite making their visit known in advance and requesting ICE personnel capable of answering questions be on hand, the lawmakers found themselves stonewalled, according to reporting by the Sentinel last month.

Instead of transparency, they got bureaucratic shrugs and misdirection. Homeland Security’s ICE staff on site couldn’t, or wouldn’t, answer even basic questions about detainee numbers, medical staffing, or access to phones, the cost of phone calls and legal counsel.

The answer they got was, we’ll get back to you. 

As the delegation bluntly put it: The Trump administration has made a habit of mopping the floors for a congressional visit, while leaving lawmakers in the dark about the conditions detainees actually face.

This isn’t mere sloppiness, it’s deliberate obstruction. And it undermines an administration already staggering under the weight of its own credibility crises.

Congress has the right and responsibility to oversee federal detention facilities. That is not a partisan talking point. It is the law. When Crow sued the Trump administration in July after being denied access to the Aurora detention center, it was in defense of his statutory right, and by extension, the public’s right to know.

But Trump’s Department of Homeland Security seems more interested in protecting the image of ICE and GEO, the Florida-based private prison that rakes in hundreds of millions of dollars detaining immigrants, than in following the law. The repeated refusal to answer questions, the denial of access, and the insistence that lawmakers run their inquiries through a slow, centralized office all serve one purpose: to conceal.

What it is that they’re working to conceal is concerning.

A six-page letter from last month lays out the possibilities, including medical neglect, prolonged segregation, pressure to self-deport, and even denial of water and air conditioning.

If conditions inside were humane and lawful, and ICE and GEO officials know that four members of Congress are coming to see the proof, the inability or unwillingness to do so speaks volumes to either their subterfuge or incompetence.

This is not about paperwork. It is not about partisan jabs. It is about human beings locked in a system notorious for abuse.

The Aurora facility has a long history of complaints, including inadequate health care, long waits for treatment, and even deaths in custody.

The Colorado members of Congress are right to demand details.

How many detainees are being held, and how many have violent criminal records, or any criminal records?

How often do they not have access to water?

What are the wait times for medical or mental health care?

How many detainees are pressured into “voluntary return” through repeated late-night visits or endless propaganda from ICE agents? One sign inside the facility 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,” Crow recalled after his most recent visit.

That’s not an offer of help.

That’s coercion cloaked in bureaucracy, dangling vague promises in front of terrified detainees who may not even understand the consequences of their choice.

The human stakes are impossible to ignore. People’s health, their freedom, their families and their very lives depend on whether the government follows the law.

At its core, this fight is about more than detention conditions. It’s about habeas corpus, the centuries-old principle that the government cannot imprison someone indefinitely without justification is the foundation of American justice, enshrined in the Constitution. It is what the colonies won when they pushed away from dictatorial royal rule.

Crow said it plainly after being denied access in July: “They’re denying people fundamental due process rights.” 

Reports of federal agents in unmarked vans snatching people off the streets, combined with ICE’s refusal to provide transparency in detention centers, echo the abuses the founders feared.

When the Trump administration shrugs off habeas corpus, it doesn’t just trample immigrant rights, it threatens the entire framework of American liberty. If one group can be held in secrecy without oversight, then the precedent is set for others to be treated the same way.

Now ICE appears to be planning to expand detention in Colorado. Reports indicate nearly 200 new beds could be added to the Aurora facility, and other shuttered prisons across the state may be reopened for immigration detention. Yet the Trump administration won’t even confirm those basic details.

That’s the reality that has proponents of a free and open government so worried. The government may be about to warehouse hundreds more people in secretive facilities, without answering questions about how the current detainees are treated.

The Trump administration often rails against “lawlessness.” But what’s more lawless than refusing congressional oversight, denying constitutional rights, and hiding the truth from Americans?

History has without fail shown that government power without transparency and accountability curdles into something dark and dangerous.

This is not partisan politics. There is nothing partisan about demanding that human beings not be subjected to neglect or abuse. There is nothing partisan about insisting the Constitution and the law be followed. There is nothing partisan about demanding that habeas corpus, the very right to challenge unlawful detention, be upheld.

Transparency is not a talking point. It is the line between a democracy and tyranny. Right now, the Trump administration is on the wrong side of that line.

 Follow @EditorDavePerry on BlueSky, Threads, Mastodon, Twitter and Facebook or reach him at 303-750-7555 or dperry@SentinelColorado.com