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Colorado ICE Detention Centers Face Renewed Pressure From Activists, Lawmakers

Recent reports from detainees and court rulings have put political pressure on ICE, but the federal money is still rolling in.

Washington, March 3, 2026

The GEO Group has to renew its contract to operate a facility in Aurora that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is using to detain hundreds of people facing deportation. But as ICE looks to expand its reach in Colorado, local activists and politicians see the contract extension as an opportunity to shut the Aurora complex down and nix plans for a new detention center in Hudson, Colorado.

“It’s not too late,” said Jennifer Piper, an activist with the American Friends Service Committee, during a virtual press conference on Monday. “Coloradans don’t want these facilities, and we’ve been clear about that.”

Piper and the AFSC are part of the Shut Down GEO Campaign, a coalition calling for the Aurora ICE facility to shut down. The activist-led campaign recently released a report on conditions inside the ICE detention center in Aurora, which is currently the only active facility for ICE detainees in Colorado. The report was based on interviews and written testimony from 31 immigrants who were held inside in 2025.

According to the 31 interviews, many detainees were underfed and sick, with estimates of 1,100 people staying there each night

The report was published the same day that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), ICE’s parent agency, lost a lawsuit from Colorado Congressmembers seeking to keep Congressional oversight in place at the Aurora facility and similar locations. Some members of Congress, including Colorado House Representative Brittany Pettersen, are also demanding that President Donald Trump reveal more information about the planned ICE facility in Hudson.

An estimated 70,000 people are in ICE detention right now, and Homeland Security touts that more than a half-million people have been deported since Trump returned to office in January 2025. The facility in Hudson, expected to be called the Big Horn Detention Center, was revealed in August along with details to increase ICE’s nationwide detention capacity to 100,0000.

The Trump administration hasn’t shown any willingness to backpedal on mass deportation plans so far, but activists and Democratic members of Congress aren’t willing to let up the pressure, either.