Take Action: Oversight and accountability for ICE, DHS, and GEO

A pair of raised hands with handcuffs around the wrists.

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The message:

DHS and ICE are out of control and must be reined in. We cannot continue to sit back, and watch ICE and its cronies attack our community members both inside and outside of its facilities with impunity. The first step in meaningful accountability is unobstructed oversight. Urge members of Congress to conduct oversight visits at the Aurora GEO detention center and demand accountability from DHS, ICE, and GEO.

The recipient:

Colorado Congressional Delegation

The impact:

Rigorous oversight needed at the GEO ICE processing center in Aurora, Colorado as inhumane treatment and medical neglect continue while the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Immigrations and Custom Enforcement (ICE), and The GEO Group, Inc. (GEO), a private prison company, move forward with plans to open a new immigration detention center in the state.

On Monday, July 13, GEO announced it was granted a 5-year contract from the federal government to open a long-shuttered detention facility in Hudson, Colorado as a new ICE processing center in the state that could hold nearly 1,200 people. The contract is expected to bring in $85 million taxpayer dollars of annual revenue for the private corporation.

This is even more troubling because the detention center in Aurora already operated by GEO has a well-documented track record of medical neglect and inhumane treatment of people who are detained there, including two individuals who tragically died at the facility.

The same week it announced ICE would be expanding immigration detention capacity in our state, a woman who was protesting outside the already existing facility was shot in the leg by a GEO employee. This was not the first shooting to happen at the hands of ICE agents and their contractors in July 2026. ICE agents in unmarked vehicles shot and killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Texas while he was on his way to work on July 7, 2026. The following week, a federal agent shot and killed Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Maine. In the public eye, ICE exhibits a blatant disregard for human life and the law.

Behind closed doors, where there is little to no oversight, their actions go unchecked. In July, local news reports unveiled the GEO facility in Aurora refused to allow local and state health officials to investigate a potential tuberculosis outbreak in the facility. The Adams County Health Department had issued a public health order after ICE and GEO denied health officials access to the facility and did not voluntarily provide requested information. A private contractor that puts its financial interests and the interests of an unlawful federal agency before the medical needs of the people in its care should not be opening a second detention facility in our state.

The message:

The recipient:

Colorado Congressional Delegation

The impact:

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Your Message

Subject

Dear Congress Member

The Aurora GEO detention center has a well-documented track record of inhumane treatment and medical neglect of the people held within its walls. Now, we’re also seeing violence and mistreatment spill out into community after an employee of The GEO Group, Inc. shot a peaceful protester who was speaking out against the broken immigration detention system in Colorado.

Message Body

I do not want my taxpayer dollars wasted on this inhumane, immoral, and unneeded ICE detention system. That’s why I’m asking you as my representative to conduct rigorous oversight into the Aurora GEO facility, including conducting unannounced, in-person visits to facility, demanding transparency from DHS, ICE, and GEO about the operations within the detention center, and holding those agencies and that private corporation accountable for their abuses against our community members.

The federal government is pouring billions of dollars into this broken system that is killing people, ripping families apart, and harming our communities. Not only does it fund these injustices, but it defends them and is looking to expand this system in Colorado and across our nation. Before ICE and GEO can be allowed to open a new immigration detention system in Hudson, Colorado, they need to be held accountable for what is happening inside, and outside, the walls of the already existing facility in our state.

The bottom line is that this system is fundamentally inhumane, unnecessarily costly, and continues to put lives at risk: Please conduct rigorous oversight and demand accountability against ICE’s cruel, abusive mass detention machine now.

Sincerely,

[First Name] [Last Name]

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Take Action: Oversight and accountability for ICE, DHS, and GEO

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