Federal immigration authorities intend to open a second Colorado detention center in Hudson — about 30 miles northeast of Denver — members of the state’s congressional delegation were told this week.
Through a spokeswoman, U.S. Rep. Brittany Pettersen confirmed to The Denver Post that she and other lawmakers were told of the plans for Hudson during a visit to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Aurora on Monday morning.
In a proposal sent to ICE earlier this year, Highlands REIT, a Chicago-based real estate investment trust, offered the shuttered private prison it owns in Hudson as a potential new detention center, according to records obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union. The Hudson Correctional Facility, which has been closed since at least 2014, was previously operated by the GEO Group, which runs the Aurora detention facility.
When it was open, the prison had a capacity of 1,250 beds. If it serves as an ICE processing facility with that bed count, ICE will have nearly doubled its detention capacity in the state. The Aurora facility is contracted to hold up to 1,360 people.
Neither GEO nor Highlands REIT responded to messages seeking comment Monday. Spokespeople for ICE also did not return emails seeking more information.
But agency officials had previously signaled that Hudson was a likely option. Robert Guadian, the head of ICE’s Denver field office, told Fox31 in April that the agency was in talks with GEO to open a facility in the town of roughly 1,600 people.
That was before the competing submittals were made public in July by the ACLU. The former Hudson Correctional Facility was one of six potential sites offered to ICE earlier this year, according to records the ACLU obtained through a records request.
The agency was seeking to add roughly 1,000 new detention beds in the Denver operational area, which includes both Colorado and Wyoming.
Immigration arrests have surged in Colorado so far this year, and congressional Republicans steered $45 billion to ICE last month to build new detention centers as part of President Donald Trump’s tax bill.
Bryce Lange, Hudson’s town manager, told The Post that he wasn’t aware of any confirmed plans as of late Monday afternoon. He said government officials had not provided any information to him or officials in other towns and counties that were home to potential detention centers.
A spokeswoman for Weld County said county leaders were also not aware if the site had been chosen. In a statement, Gov. Jared Polis spokesman Eric Maruyama said that ICE has “not shared any details of plans to expand with the governor’s office.” Maruyama said Polis called on ICE to be more transparent with its operations in the state.
According to state records, the Hudson facility was built in 2009 on 50 acres and has just over 300,000 square feet inside its buildings. As of 2012, it had at least four housing units, plus medical and administrative buildings.
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