The operators of Colorado’s only immigrant detention center are still refusing to allow state health inspectors to conduct an investigation into a tuberculosis case in the facility, a month after officials issued an order requiring access.
Amid the standoff, the company — Geo Group — argued in federal court Friday that a new state law requiring more regular inspections at the facility should be struck down as unconstitutional.
For the past month, Geo Group has ignored a public health order from Adams County officials seeking access to the Aurora detention center so that they can conduct an investigation into the TB case, which was confirmed late last month. Company officials have also not responded to efforts by the county to communicate about the situation. The company hasn’t complied with a request by Colorado’s top public health official that sought inspector access by July 17.
State and local officials have not yet taken additional steps, such as seeking a court order, to obtain access to the facility.
Kelly Weidenbach, the executive director of the Adams County Health Department, told reporters outside federal court Friday in Denver that the county was still assessing options with its legal counsel and state officials.
Asked why the department hadn’t gone to court to enforce its order, Weidenbach said Geo’s ongoing legal effort to invalidate — which requires multiple health inspections of the facility each year — have played a role in officials’ planning.
“Some of the legal arguments in this particular case were pertinent to our authority,” she said.
Hope Schuler, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, said in a Thursday email that the state was also still evaluating “whether additional state action, including a state public health order, would meaningfully improve access or simply duplicate requirements already in place.” If the state issued its own health order that Geo ignored, then the Colorado Attorney General’s Office could seek a court order to enforce it.
Schuler said the state health department had been told that the patient who tested positive for TB had been isolated and then left the facility; federal officials said the person was deported. Schuler said the facility undertook testing and contact tracing, which is the process of tracking down who may have been in contact with the infected patient.
“That information, if true, is reassuring, but it remains summary-level, though we are not able to independently verify the information,” Schuler wrote. “Public health officials are continuing to ask to verify that everyone potentially exposed was appropriately identified, tested, and treated.”
Weidenbach said the patient who tested positive for TB last month appears to have contracted the condition outside of the facility and that the patient denied having symptoms. She said health officials didn’t have any information to know if other patients had contracted TB.
, Geo officials said earlier this month that there was one detainee who was still being monitored for TB. The facility’s staff told Crow’s office that they held a “medical town hall for detainees in the affected area” and that some asked to be tested.
From Geo’s investigation, the facility determined that 61 individuals were exposed to the sick patient and were placed in a “precautionary cohort.” Crow’s office said at least two detainees were in medical isolation.
“When asked, ICE said they can deny facility access to local officials as they are a federal facility. GEO medical staff said they adhere to CDC guidelines,” Crow’s office wrote.
Geo officials have taken that argument into federal court. On Friday, attorneys for the company told U.S. District Court Judge Daniel D. Domenico that the state cannot discriminate against Geo by subjecting it to “bespoke” inspection protocols. They also said that other provisions in the bill — like specific medical staffing levels and new processes related to communicable diseases — could not be levied against the company because it’s a federal contractor.
But attorneys for the state countered that the detention center, if anything, had received favorable treatment because it had previously faced a lower health inspection burden than state prisons and county jails. They pointed out that Geo has been subject to inspections by state officials for several years and had not challenged that authority before.
As for the other provisions in the new law, the attorneys said those were subject to rulemaking by the state health department and were not going to be implemented in the imminent future.
Geo asked Domenico to immediately block the law. The judge said he would issue a ruling on whether to do so at a later date.
