DENVER—A businessman’s appeal has slowed plans to nearly triple the size of a privately owned and operated Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in the Denver suburb of Aurora.
City approval of the project by the GEO Group Inc. was to be final on Monday. But the appeal from Anthony Paradiso, who owns a building near the facility that houses a dog daycare center, delayed the process, giving groups a chance to voice concerns about what they call a “speculative” $72 million, 1,100-bed expansion under way without a contract from ICE.
A hearing on the appeal is set for June 2. Paradiso didn’t immediately return a phone call Tuesday for comment.
The Aurora ICE Processing Center currently has 400 beds for suspected illegal immigrants picked up in Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana and Utah.
In October, The GEO Group said the expansion, to be completed by October 2009, was intended to address federal agencies’ need for detention space around the country. At 90 percent capacity, GEO estimates the Aurora center would generate about $30 million in operating revenue each year.
A message left for company spokesman Pablo Paez was not immediately returned Tuesday.
Carl Rusnok, a regional spokesman for ICE, confirmed the agency had no contract with GEO for the expansion and stressed it was driven by the company.
Stan Weekes, state director of the Colorado Alliance for Immigration Reform, said the expansion is not unlike the building of correctional facilities by counties or state government in anticipation of an increase in inmate population.
“There’s the fact that there’s not a contract,” said Chandra Russo of the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, whose group has campaigned for immigrant rights, such as driver’s licenses. “It’s pretty easy to push through an immigration detention center. It’s going to be much harder to push through a jail. If they don’t get an immigration contract, they’re going to scramble to find other inmates to fill those beds.”
According to ICE, the average daily population at more than 300 public and private facilities contracted by the agency across the country, as well nine ICE-owned facilities, is about 31,000, up 64 percent from 20,000 in 2002.
Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., an outspoken critic of illegal immigration, said the government’s policy of incarcerating some undocumented immigrants, instead of immediately deporting them, is leading to the increase.
“Does anyone think we don’t have 1,100 illegal aliens in the area?” Tancredo said. “I don’t think that there’s much to worry about. If there are 1,500 beds available I guarantee you they will be used.”
A Colorado State Patrol Immigration Enforcement Unit that became operational in July 2007 has arrested 794 undocumented immigrants and investigated 33 human smuggling and trafficking cases on Colorado highways.
Of those arrested, 146 had criminal records and some had been convicted of multiple felonies, the Patrol said.
At least two county jails in western Colorado last year were unable to accept detainees picked up by the state patrol because they didn’t meet federal standards. Colorado Department of Public Safety spokesman Lance Clem said the patrol solved the problem by getting a van to transport detainees to the Aurora detention center.
GEO Group Inc., formerly Wackenhut Corrections Corp., owns or operates 67 correctional and residential treatment facilities in the U.S., Australia, South Africa and the United Kingdom, according to its Web site.
