HUDSON — A group of immigration advocates on Thursday announced a new lawsuit aimed at preventing the Trump administration from opening a planned immigration detention facility in their community.
, a nonprofit collection of faith leaders fighting for humane immigration policies, and a Weld County resident sued the town of Hudson and its Town Council, arguing the municipality must enforce its land development code as the federal government moves toward reopening a shuttered private prison for use as a 1,188-bed detention center.
The property, which the Alaska Department of Corrections used as a prison until it closed in 2013, is not zoned for use as a detention facility, the complaint states.
For it to be used in that capacity, the property owner must obtain approval through public processes outlined in Hudson’s code, Together Colorado alleges in the lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Weld County District Court.
“This case is about a basic proposition: Colorado and its cities and towns are not powerless. Hudson is not a bystander. The town has the authority and the obligation to act,” said David Seligman, executive director of the nonprofit law firm , and an attorney litigating the case. “The town is being told to hand over the keys and ask no questions. But Hudson’s obligation runs to the people, not to a billion-dollar prison company and its out-of-state landlord.”
The lawsuit comes 10 days after the private prison giant Geo Group announced it had signed a five-year contract with the Trump administration to reopen the shuttered prison as part of the president’s mass-deportation agenda.
The agreement — worth more than — will nearly double U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s detention capacity in Colorado. Geo operates ICE’s other Colorado immigration facility in Aurora, which can hold more than 1,500 detainees.
Geo has not said when the Hudson facility — to be called the Big Horn Contract Detention Center — would open, though its lease begins Aug. 1 and will last for 88 months, according to securities filings.
Hudson, a small town roughly 30 miles northeast of Denver, has been the site of repeated protests from community members opposing the government’s plans.
Bryce Lange, the town manager, told The Post on Thursday that the U.S. Constitution supersedes local zoning. Hudson, he said, will focus on what it can do — which is maintain roads, public safety and water for the area.
“The town zoning code cannot stop immigration enforcement,” Lange said.
But Together Colorado alleges Hudson has both a legal and moral obligation to follow its code.
The facility is located in an industrial zoning district, the lawsuit states, which does not include correctional facilities.
Before its prior period of operation as a prison, Hudson voters approved a conditional use permit for the property by ballot measure, the complaint says.
“GEO and ICE are not above the law,” Seligman said at a news conference Thursday outside Hudson’s town hall. “The town cannot put its head in the sand.”
He was joined by faith leaders from across Colorado, who spoke of this as a “moment of moral crisis for our country.” They held signs reading “no concentration camps in Colorado,” sang songs of freedom and bowed their heads in prayer.
“The foreigners who reside among us are not our enemies,” said Pastor Ben Konecny, a reverend at the First Congregational Church in Greeley. “These are our future doctors, future lawyers and future schoolteachers.”
