The Thursday decision from U.S. District Court Judge Daniel D. Domenico defangs the most immediate part of , which Democratic lawmakers passed earlier this year.

Siding in large part with a request from Geo Group, the private company that runs the Aurora detention center, Domenico found that HB 1276’s provisions requiring unannounced inspections at least once every three months were preempted by federal law and Geo’s existing contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

He wrote that the newly required inspections — and a companion provision that directed Geo to pay for them — “are currently in effect, imposing actual burdens on Geo of more frequent and costly inspections.” He said the new rules were likely unconstitutional.

Domenico noted that Geo’s contract with ICE is due to expire Oct. 15. He set his injunction to end on that date because the “provisions of any new contract that GEO (or another operator) obtains from the federal government may alter the analysis significantly, or make proceeding further with this case unnecessary at all.”

Aside from requiring more regular inspections, HB 1276 also empowers state health officials to impose other regulations on Geo, including requiring specific medical staffing and preventing Geo from blocking outside infectious disease inspections. Lawyers for the state have argued in court that those provisions aren’t in effect yet and that the state has no immediate plans to bring them into effect.

As a result, Domenico did not block them — though he suggested that “should enforcement of those provisions become imminent, this analysis might change.”

A spokesman for Geo did not immediately return a message seeking comment; the company recently announced plans to open another ICE-contracted detention center in Hudson, north of Denver.

Nayda Benitez, the organizing director for the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, which worked on the law during the legislative session, said her group was concerned about what impact the ruling would have going forward.

“We maintain that we don’t necessarily think that pieces of this bill are unconstitutional,” she said. “For us, it¶¶Ňőap just important that we hold Geo and really any private detention facility in Colorado to high standards, especially knowing what we’re hearing from our members and people on the inside at Geo.”

In a statement, Attorney General Phil Weiser called the ruling a “narrow, temporary injunction” and noted that Domenico did not undo other, pre-existing state laws. Domenico’s ruling did leave intact county officials’ ability to inspect Geo at their discretion, and he did not touch other provisions unrelated to facility inspections.

Still, Domenico’s opinion is a blow to the only part of Colorado Democrats’ immigration package to survive the 2026 legislative session. Lawmakers killed two other measures, and Gov. Jared Polis vetoed a third.

More fundamentally, the ruling lays bare the core challenge for legislators hoping to put state-level constraints on the Trump administration’s immigration efforts. Immigration enforcement is generally a federal duty, and its operation is carried out chiefly by either federal agents or federal contractors, like Geo — whicih are often outside the scope of state officials’ regulatory authority

The opinion also comes amid intense scrutiny over the conditions inside the Aurora facility: On Wednesday, Weiser’s office sued Geo for blocking state health inspectors from carrying out a tuberculosis investigation tied to the detention center.

The lawsuit, filed in Denver District Court, was expected after private prison company Geo Group ignored a Monday deadline to turn over records about the June tuberculosis case at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s facility to state health authorities.

The state’s lawsuit argues that, because Geo and ICE have not provided records to health inspectors, Colorado is “flying in the dark when it comes to a contagious and deadly infectious disease within its borders.”

The lawsuit asks a Denver judge to issue a ruling enforcing the public health order.

“The Geo Group is endangering Coloradans’ public health by refusing to follow the state health department¶¶Ňőap order and by violating Colorado law,” Attorney General Phil Weiser said in a statement. “This law keeps our residents safe and enables the health department to take necessary measures to prevent the spread of infectious diseases like tuberculosis.”

In a statement Tuesday, Geo spokesman Christopher Ferreira did not comment on the company’s refusal to comply with the health order. He said there were no active cases of TB at the Aurora detention center and that federal authorities “remain actively involved in disease-prevention and control measures” at the facility.

The lawsuit was filed under a Colorado law requiring investigations of tuberculosis cases, which directs the state “to use every available means to investigate immediately and ascertain the existence of all reported or suspected cases of active tuberculosis within (its) jurisdiction.” The suit was not filed under a new law passed earlier this year, which requires more regular inspections of the Geo facility and empowers state authorities to penalize the company for failing to comply with communicable disease probes. Geo is currently challenging that new law in federal court.

In the lawsuit filed Wednesday, lawyers for the state argue that health inspectors had partnered with Geo to conduct disease investigations in the past, including a mumps case in 2019 and another TB infection in 2024. But in this case, Geo stopped speaking with Adams County officials after the company set up a call between inspectors and the infected patient in late June.

The company instead directed health officials to send all questions through Geo’s lawyers, according to the suit. Gov. Jared Polis made at least two attempts to speak to senior Geo staff, both of which were rebuffed.

In a statement Wednesday, Polis said that “Geo’s consistent lack of transparency” was blocking a routine health investigation.

“Public health orders carry the weight of law, and we appreciate the collaboration from Attorney General Weiser’s office on this effort,” he wrote. “I am hopeful the courts will ensure that local public health officials get the information needed to protect public health.”

The standoff in Colorado began in June, when Adams County health officials learned that a Geo detainee had tested positive for TB, a potentially fatal respiratory disease.

Adams County officials issued a health order later that month seeking access to the facility and more information about the patient and anyone with whom they had come into contact. Geo ignored that order and a mid-July request from state health officials for the same information.

Amid pressure from advocates, state officials from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment issued another public health order to Geo last week. The order dropped the prior request for access to the detention center, though it still sought records about the patient and their potential contacts.

In a statement Wednesday, state health department spokeswoman Hope Shuler said the agency was disappointed that legal action was necessary.

“We remain ready to work collaboratively, but cooperation requires GEO to provide access and information required by law,” she wrote. “We hope this action results in prompt compliance so public health officials can complete the investigation and ensure that anyone who may have been exposed receives appropriate follow-up care.”

Washington state and New Jersey have both also filed recent lawsuits against Geo to force the company to allow health inspectors access to its facilities in those states.

Geo Group’s refusal to comply with the order’s deadline — confirmed Tuesday by a state spokeswoman — means the impasse may now only be resolved in a courtroom.

Urged by advocates to take firmer action to investigate the spread of tuberculosis, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment issued the order on Aug. 13 after Geo refused to comply with a June order from Adams County health officials. The state order gives the Colorado Attorney General’s Office authority to sue Geo to force it to comply with the tuberculosis investigation, which seeks details about the detainee diagnosed with TB and any other people who may have come into contact with them.

Hope Shuler, a spokeswoman for the health department, confirmed that Geo had not sent the required information to state officials.

“Public officials must be able to verify the facts, identify people who may have been exposed and ensure they receive appropriate follow-up care,” Shuler wrote in a statement. “GEO has a responsibility not only to the people in its facility, but also to its employees and surrounding community. Its continued refusal to cooperate significantly limits the investigation, but we remain determined to obtain the information needed to protect public health.”

It’s unclear what happens next or on what timeline: Shuler said the health department is “actively coordinating with Adams County, the Colorado Attorney General’s Office and Denver Health TB Clinic on next steps, including legal remedies.”

A spokesman for Attorney General Phil Weiser, who is in California for a trial against the social media company Meta, said the office had no updates as of Tuesday afternoon.

In a statement Tuesday, Geo spokesman Christopher Ferreira did not respond when asked whether the company had complied with the order. He said that there are no active or suspected cases of tuberculosis at the facility.

“Over the past two months, GEO has engaged repeatedly with the Adams County Health Department and other Colorado officials and has provided information to the state as authorized by DHS,” he said, referring to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees immigration enforcement. “DHS and (the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) remain actively involved in disease-prevention and control measures at (the detention center).”

In an email last week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement referred questions about the order to Geo, which the agency contracts to run the detention center.

One person tested positive for tuberculosis in June, health officials have previously said. That person has since been deported, and Adams County officials said the person was believed to have contracted the respiratory illness before entering the facility. Geo undertook its own investigation and has repeatedly said there are no additional active cases of TB within the 1,530-bed detention center.

But Geo and ICE have refused to provide additional information to state or county investigators or grant them access to the Aurora facility to confirm that report or conduct the health investigation that’s required by law. The county issued its own public health order in June, which was ignored.

The state health department then requested more information in mid-July and gave Geo a 48-hour deadline to respond. Geo ignored that request, too, and state health officials’ attempts to work with Geo — outside of another health order — were unsuccessful.

Adams County officials previously told reporters that Geo had stopped communicating with them in late June.

U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper visited the Aurora facility Monday and told reporters that Geo staff declined to discuss the tuberculosis situation on advice of their lawyers. He said they also would not indicate whether they intended to comply with the state health order.

“You cannot do an investigation like this in a vacuum,” Hickenlooper said from the sidewalk outside of the facility. “…I’m shocked. I’ve never in my life seen a time where a direct order from the public health authority or a direct order from the state office of public health is ignored.”

If Weiser’s office sues Geo to enforce the order, the ensuing litigation will likely become entangled with another lawsuit between the company and the state.

In June, after Gov. Jared Polis signed a law requiring more regular inspections of the facility, Geo sued, arguing in essence that only the federal government could regulate it. The first hearing in that case came late last month and had influenced officials’ willingness to take additional legal steps to force compliance with the tuberculosis investigation.

State officials in both Washington state and New Jersey have sued Geo after the company blocked health inspectors in those states from accessing its detention centers.

Last month, Geo announced that it had signed a $528.6 million contract with ICE to open a new detention center in Hudson, a small, rural community north of Denver.

The state Department of Public Health and Environment gave Geo Group until Monday, Aug. 17 to provide information to state inspectors so they could complete a tuberculosis investigation that was first launched in June, when a detainee tested positive for the respiratory illness. The latest order does not seek direct access to the 1,530-bed detention center. But it does request a list of individuals with confirmed or suspected cases of tuberculosis identified since June 1, as well as a list of individuals who may have come into contact with the confirmed case, and information about the person who tested positive in June and has since been deported from the U.S.

If Geo does not comply with the order, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser can file a lawsuit to force the company to turn over the requested records. In a statement Thursday afternoon, Weiser said he was “committed to enforcing this public health order and defending Colorado law.”

“CDPHE’s priority is protecting everyone connected to the facility, including detained people, employees, contractors, visitors and the broader community,” CDPHE executive director Jill Hunsaker Ryan said in a separate statement. “We sought to complete this routine investigation collaboratively, just as we would with any other facility in Colorado. Because repeated requests and the county’s public health order have not produced the necessary information, we are taking this additional step to obtain the information needed to protect public health.”

A Geo spokesman deferred questions to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, did not immediately respond to an email late Thursday afternoon.

The order is an escalation of what has become a protracted standoff between health officials and the state’s only immigrant detention center. After a detainee tested positive in June, Adams County health officials requested access to the facility and to records about the case and other possible infections. When that information wasn’t provided, the county issued its own health order.

With Geo refusing to budge, Hunsaker Ryan sent the company a letter in mid-July demanding access within 48 hours. Like Adams County’s order, that request was also rebuffed.

Though an escalation, the order is narrower than what state health officials had sought from Geo just last month, which included physical access to the facility. Miriam Ordoñez Rodriguez, of the American Friends Service Committee, said the order “has close to no teeth.”

“We are appalled and demand (state officials) hold Geo, like any other private company, accountable,” she said in a statement.

Late last month, CDPHE spokeswoman Hope Shuler told The Denver Post that the confirmed TB patient was no longer in the facility. She said Geo had undertaken its own investigation into the case.

“That information, if true, is reassuring, but it remains summary-level, though we are not able to independently verify the information,” Shuler wrote at the time.

Adams County officials previously said that the patient who tested positive for TB appears to have contracted the condition outside of the facility and that the patient denied having symptoms. Federal authorities have repeatedly said there are no active cases of TB in the detention center.

The impasse had been complicated by a lawsuit that Geo filed in early June, before the TB case was confirmed. The lawsuit seeks to invalidate a new state law requiring more frequent detention center inspections, and the first hearing in the case was last month. Adams County health officials said the case had a direct bearing on their ability to enter the facility, suggesting they would not take legal action against Geo until a federal judge had weighed in on the lawsuit.

As the standoff dragged on, immigration advocates have repeatedly urged Gov. Jared Polis and state health officials to issue a health order to force Geo and ICE to comply with the order. Advocates staged a protest outside of the state Capitol on Monday and pressed Hunsaker Ryan, who attended the event, to issue an order.

Hunsaker Ryan told advocates the state had no timeline on filing a public health order but that state officials’ patience was wearing thin. In a town hall earlier this month, state epidemiologist Rachel Herlihy said the impasse was a “uniquely frustrating” situation.

“It¶¶Ňőap not a magic bullet,” Hunsaker Ryan said of a health order, according to a video of her exchange with advocates reviewed by The Denver Post. “So we were just hoping that we could appeal to (Geo’s) better angels and see if they want to come back into partnership with us first.”

Foul odor

As public health officials are still trying to get their hands around the tuberculosis investigation, advocates this week have warned of an alleged new issue in the facility: a foul, natural gas-like smell that filtered into cells starting late last week.

On Tuesday, Monique Sherman of the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network said she’d heard about the smell from multiple people inside the facility. She said the smell appeared to be worst at night, when internal doors were closed, and that it was making people inside the facility feel sick.

The source of the smell is unclear. Eric Hurst, spokesman for Aurora Fire and Rescue, said in a statement earlier this week that the department had received three calls about the odor between Saturday and Monday. He said that fire officials had investigated a gaseous odor “a few blocks north” of the detention center on Sunday but couldn’t locate its source. Xcel crews told fire officials that a nearby business had used a cleaning solution that smelled like propane gas.

In a statement Thursday morning, Xcel spokeswoman Lisa Anderson said Xcel crews were at the detention center on Monday because of an “odor complaint.” No natural gas leak was detected, she wrote.

ICE officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the odor. In an earlier , the agency said that the gas leak reports were “false” and “a hoax.”

Amid the standoff, the company—Geo Group, which operates the facility for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement—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 Shuler, 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.

Shuler 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,” Shuler 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 on whether 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, referencing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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.

, 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.”

Before now, the 21-year-old from Littleton has never felt like she was in danger while attending weekly protests outside the Aurora immigration detention center – that is, before a worker at the facility allegedly shot her in the foot as she was walking away from a confrontation after a protest Thursday night.

Landis said she knew protests could get violent, but it felt like something she’s only seen online.

“You prepare yourself for all the outcomes that can come, but did I expect it to happen? No. Did I think I would be in danger at that event? No,” she said Wednesday, shortly after leaving a court hearing for 42-year-old Brandon Booth, the man accused of shooting her.

Aurora police said Booth, who works for private prison operator Geo Group, was standing with a group of coworkers near their vehicles along Nome Street because the demonstration was preventing them from getting into the facility to start their shifts.

Officers already at the scene said the workers, Landis and another woman with Landis started verbally sparring as the women walked by, with the women shouting insults at the Geo Group employees and threatening to run their license plates and find out where their children went to school.

Booth told police he got so angry about the threats that he pulled out a gun and shot at the women as they walked away to scare them, hitting Landis in the back of the foot. He told police he did not intend to shoot anyone, according to his arrest affidavit.

Landis said she saw Booth holding something in a bag on his chest and started feeling threatened, which is when she and her friend turned and walked away.

“I felt the burning and I looked at my foot and saw the blood, and that¶¶Ňőap when I called 911,” she said.

Booth fled the scene and was arrested a short time later.

Colorado prosecutors on Wednesday charged him with first-degree assault and attempted assault, both felonies, the district attorney’s office said.

The DA’s office did not file attempted murder, felony menacing or weapons charges, which Aurora police had also accused Booth of in his arrest affidavit.

Booth appeared in Adams County District Court in handcuffs and a black-and-white striped jumpsuit on Wednesday afternoon and did not speak during the short hearing.

Landis’ attorney, Siddhartha Rathod of the Denver firm , said he, his client and his firm commend the DA’s office for bringing charges and support the decision.

Landis said she’s still trying to process everything that¶¶Ňőap happened in the past week. Political activism is something she learned early in life, she said, by going to demonstrations like the 2017 Women’s March with her parents.

“If you see something wrong, you say that it¶¶Ňőap wrong, you report it or find a way to fix that problem,” she said.

Landis said she’s not deterred from protesting because of her injury – if anything, it¶¶Ňőap the opposite.

“It honestly makes me want to do more,” she said, adding that she doesn’t want to be used as an “example” of what happens when people protest.

“I want to be used as an advocate, a way for voices to be heard that need to be heard,” she said.

Landis also hopes what happened doesn’t discourage people in the community from speaking out.

“Keep being out there,” she said. “Know how important it is to speak for what you believe in.”

Booth remains in custody on a $100,000 bail and is set to appear in court on Aug. 13.

Re: “Tuberculosis inquiry remains stuck as officials press for access,” July 21 news story.

I was appalled but not surprised to read that the Geo Group at the ICE processing facility in Aurora is stalling or refusing to provide necessary information about a tuberculosis case or cases to state and county health officials so that a proper communicable disease investigation can be completed and additional cases averted. A case of a potentially fatal illness in a 1,530-bed facility is a major cause for concern. The Geo Group’s assertion that the case in question was treated and cleared is no substitute for a public health investigation, and Geo’s refusal to cooperate with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment¶¶Ňőap directive to allow the inspectors into the facility is unacceptable and dangerous. Geo seems to be operating a rogue operation in Aurora, following its own rules and resisting state laws. Why it is being allowed to skirt the law, risking the health of inmates and workers, is a profound mystery.

Nancy Vaughan, Denver

Trump’s priorities are askew

Re: “Trump renews election attacks,” July 17 news story.

This past week, President Donald Trump spoke to the nation. He did not discuss the war in Iran, the inflation that comes with it or the billions of dollars required to replenish our military stocks. He did not address the most recent killings by ICE agents. He did not talk about the kitchen table economics or the disaster relief funds that he has held up. He did not talk about the fact that the U.S. debt is greater than the gross domestic product. No, all he talked about was his obsession with the lost 2020 election and the problems with our election process. A process that got him elected twice. And in his speech, he threatened to pull the licenses for NBC and CBS for not broadcasting his speech even though it was available on their streaming apps.

Does our president or his sycophants care about human life? Does he or his sycophants care about free speech? Does he or his sycophants care about the nation’s debt? Does he or his sycophants care about how you’re going to survive until your next paycheck?

I think not.

John Okada, Loveland

Not carrying Trump’s speech was a cover-up

Tonight, NBC and ABC refused to carry President Trump’s speech. Why? If even 50% of what he said is correct, I am sure the whole thing will be investigated by all the political pundits since he (Trump) claims it will be put out for all to see. It seems to me there has been a huge cover-up pulled on the American people. NBC gave a 20-second statement trying to cover their butt on the 9 O’clock news, but it said nothing.

I don’t want to revisit the 2020 election; we have heard that story way too often. The real question is, why are major networks trying to censor news? Are they controlled by parties that don’t want certain things to get out? Or, instead of being neutral, are they only willing to publish negative news on some and positive news on others? I know this much; I won’t be watching NBC or ABC. They can forget about me seeing ads for any companies spending money, trying to get me to buy anything.

Duane Ross, Aurora

Huckins’ art inspires climate action

Re: “Watching heaven burn,” July 19 features story.

Thanks to Ray Mark Rinaldi for describing the work of painter Shawn Huckins in the Sunday Post. Viewing wildfire through a partly drawn curtain serves up a powerful metaphor of our collective reaction to a warming planet. Our instinct is to turn away from the ongoing consequences of climate change, to close the curtains. The artist shows us that the “burn” cannot now be avoided — even a sliver of a view exposes us to the reality of an overheating planet. The next step is increasingly compelling: to step out of the room and take action to deal with the burning world.

 Phil Nelson, Golden

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agents arrested 27-year-old Chantal Alejandra Morales Rojas, who is from Ecuador, on Monday, the confirmed to The Denver Post. The agency said she entered the U.S. on Oct. 20, 2024, and overstayed her visa, which allowed her to remain in the country until Jan. 4, 2025.

She remains in ICE custody “pending removal proceedings,” an unidentified DHS spokesperson said in an email to The Post on Wednesday.

Woman is abducted by ICE at the Denver airport when trying to return home to Oakland. She’s detained by ICE at the Denver airport (Southwest Airlines), taken from the jetway and hustled into an unmarked van on the tarmac

— Sigurdur Nordal (@essenviews)

A created to pay for Morales Rojas’ legal fees said she lives in Oakland, California, and has a work permit. The crowdfunding campaign had raised more than $99,000 by Wednesday evening.

Alicia Dantzker, who lives in California and started the GoFundMe campaign, told The Post that she has known Morales Rojas since 2023. Dantzker is close friends with the family who hosted Morales Rojas as an au pair.

Dantzker was in Colorado with ultimate Frisbee players from across the country for the in Aurora. Morales Rojas was an au pair for a family in the ultimate community, and came to Aurora to be with the kids and family she used to live with, Dantzker said.

Dantzker and Morales Rojas were booked on the same flight back to Oakland on Monday. Dantzker said she went to fill her water bottle at the Southwest gate and came back to find Morales Rojas terrified. A man had approached her and asked her to discuss her visa status, Dantzker said.

“We did not realize they were there targeting her specifically,” Dantzker said Wednesday. “We thought they were just asking her about her visa because she is a Latina woman. We thought she would be safe on the plane.”

More men showed up at the airport gate, staring at Morales Rojas but standing a short distance away, Dantzker said. When it was time to board, Dantzker said an alarm sounded when Morales Rojas scanned her boarding pass.

“Two men rushed up to us and corralled us into the jetway, and someone behind us started pushing us into the door to trap us inside,” Dantzker said.

Dantzker said she told the men to show their arrest warrant to a lawyer who was outside the door at the gate, but they did not. She began filming the incident and decided she should make as much noise as she could.

“I was thinking about how to make the most difference,” Dantzker said.

The video begins with Morales Rojas and Dantzker in the Southwest jetway being confronted by federal agents in plain clothes. Dantzker tells the agents that Morales Rojas’ lawyer is outside and advises Morales Rojas not to speak to ICE.

“We’re going to be very nice to you,” the agent says to Morales Rojas in the video before threatening to charge Dantzker with interfering with their proceedings.

that the Trump administration is increasingly using a once-obscure statute, , to charge people with impeding or assaulting federal officers. The ICE agent cites that statute in the Denver airport video. Punishments for the federal crime range from a fine to 20 years in prison.

In the video, Morales Rojas is led through a door out to the tarmac while Dantzker shouts, “Help us! ICE is here!”

Other people waiting at the Southwest gate begin crowding around, pulling out their phones to film and looking out the windows onto the tarmac while Morales Rojas was placed into a van and taken to the ICE detention facility in Aurora.

The federal agent says, “We’re being very nice. We’re being very respectful.”

Dantzker says: “(Expletive) you. This is (expletive) evil. You should be ashamed of yourself. Who gives a (expletive) if you’re being polite? (Expletive) you.”

A Southwest gate agent steps in and tells Dantzker, “If you are on this flight and you speak to them like that, you will not board this flight.”

“I don’t understand why Southwest needed to get involved with my involvement with ICE — to defend them,” Dantzker said.

Southwest Airlines told The Post on Wednesday that the company cannot comment on the details of law enforcement activities, but that DHS and the have access to all passenger information as part of their responsibilities to clear travelers at airport security checkpoints.

The airline may deny boarding to customers it deems disruptive or who otherwise display behavior that could threaten the safety of others, the airline said.

“Southwest complies with applicable state and federal law when asked to share information about customers,” Lynn Lunsford, a Southwest Airlines spokesperson, said in a statement. “The airline has provided guidance to employees to help ensure appropriate legal documentation is presented by law enforcement agencies prior to interactions in the gate areas. Southwest is committed to providing a safe travel experience for all customers and employees.”

The airline told The Post that Dantzker got to her destination that evening on a later flight. Dantzker said Southwest offered her another flight later that day, but that she did not feel comfortable flying that airline and took a different flight the next day.

“When I went back to the airport the next day to go to a different terminal, I could feel my heart racing,” Dantzker said. “It was scary, but I’m free and not in an ICE facility, so it’s nothing compared to what Chantal is going through.”

Dantzker said the Oakland nanny community was horrified after hearing about Chantal’s detention.

“No one took their kids to the park today because they’re just so afraid,” Dantzker said.

Dantzker described Morales Rojas as kind, helpful and gentle.

“She loves the outdoors, she’s incredibly smart and so wise,” Dantzker said. “She’s a magical caretaker and just a really wonderful, thoughtful, incredibly calm person.”

When asked whether Morales Rojas had a work permit and a pending immigration case, the unnamed ICE representative responded that work permits or pending legal cases do not confer “any type of legal status in the United States or prevent ICE from arresting or deporting an illegal alien from the country. … Each illegal alien receives due process.”

The GoFundMe page said Morales Rojas was taken to an ICE detention facility. It was not immediately clear whether Morales Rojas was being held at the run by .

Andrea Loya, executive director for local immigrant rights organization , said the group is worried about reported ICE activity at the airport as people wait for domestic flights.

“We have confirmed that this has been taking place since at least Wednesday night with a different woman being abducted outside of a Frontier flight,” Loya said. “ICE is showing that they will meet their number quotas by any means necessary.”

Denver airport officials, in an unsigned statement, acknowledged that “a number of federal agencies lawfully operate and have jurisdiction” at DIA and “are not required to inform the airport of their activity.”

Dantzker said it was clear the government has known where Morales Rojas has been at every moment.

“There is no secrecy to how she’s living, and the idea they had to wait to trap her in a jetway in a Denver airport just reeks of cruelty and trying to terrorize people,” she said.

All of this comes as the U.S. Department of Homeland Security — under the direction of President Donald Trump — has scaled up a mass deportation effort that doesn’t only target criminals anymore and has begun a public dragnet for anyone with questionable legal status. The administration is expecting to detain so many people that DHS signed a $529 million contract with Geo Group to open a second Colorado facility to lock up 1,188 people in Hudson. The Aurora facility already holds 1,530 people.

We are skeptical, however, that meaningful oversight will come from a federal department that is in complete disarray, having burned through Kristi Noem in 18 months. Now the agency is led by Markwayne Mullin, a man who is refusing to publicly address the fact that under his watch immigration enforcement officers have shot and killed two unarmed people they were trying to detain during roadside stops in separate states.

What little oversight we will get of the Geo facility in Aurora and the new facility proposed for Hudson must come from Congress or from city, county and state officials.

U.S. Rep. Jason Crow has tried for years to hold the Geo Group accountable, writing a bill that actually became law requiring federal detention centers, even when privately owned, to allow members of Congress to tour facilities without giving prior notice. Geo Group still refused to allow Crow into the facility, so the Aurora congressman filed a lawsuit, getting a judicial order to allow him access.

Meanwhile, the Geo Group has refused to work with county and state health officials attempting to ascertain whether a single known case of tuberculosis in the facility this month could trigger a larger outbreak.

“Our priority remains obtaining the cooperation needed to do a communicable disease investigation,” Hope Shuler, a spokeswoman with the Division of Disease Control and Public Health Response, told The Denver Post. “(The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment) has also reassured the facility and federal officials that the information being requested is standard for this type of public health investigation.”

Gov. Jared Polis is attempting to meet with the company’s owners but has so far been unsuccessful.

The Geo Group, which was founded by George Zoley, the current CEO and chairman, responded to questions about the recent shooting and the tuberculosis case from The Denver Post on Wednesday afternoon.

“Aurora ICE Processing Center employees are not issued firearms inside the facility, and they are not permitted to bring personal firearms into the Center. They are also required to follow all applicable federal, state, and local laws. The Aurora ICE Processing Center is a federal immigration processing center that follows standards set by the federal government and operates under close federal government oversight,” wrote a spokesperson for the company. “The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) — working with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — has publicly confirmed that there are no active tuberculosis cases at the Center. We would refer you to DHS and ICE for any further questions.”

An employee of Geo Group lost his cool last week while trying to drive past protesters blocking the entrance into the Aurora detention center. Police accuse the man of pulling out his gun and shooting a protester who was walking away from the conflict.

The woman was hit by a bullet in the back of her foot and was taken to the hospital. She has said in interviews that none of the Geo employees present for the shooting stopped to render aid after she was shot, but Aurora police officers on the scene immediately responded to help and to pursue the shooter. He fled the scene and was later arrested on charges including attempted murder. Zoley has refused to comment on the shooting. Still, the company did put out a statement saying that the employee accused of attempted murder had been “placed on unpaid administrative leave and we will fully cooperate with law enforcement.”

We are grateful that the chief of police in Aurora has handled the case so far with transparency and clarity.

“Violence of any kind will not be tolerated in Aurora. Constitutional rights are a pivotal part of a just society — violence is not,” Aurora police Chief Todd Chamberlain said.

Protests at immigration detention centers are occurring across the nation and are becoming increasingly hostile. On July 4, 2025, an Alvarado, Texas, police officer was shot in the neck by a protester who was part of a group setting off fireworks and harassing detention center employees. . We urge protesters to remain peaceful at their Geo Group vigils, and we encourage them to stay loud and fearless.

We need this federally funded facility to be transparent about the safety, health and conditions for both its employees and its detainees – all of whom are humans deserving of humane conditions and safe working environments. Zoley should be out front personally working with state and local officials on these issues, and he should be explaining how he will improve the training and vetting of staff to prevent a future tragedy.

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Updated July 22, 2026 at 1:06 p.m. This editorial was updated to include a response to questions from a Geo Group spokesperson that were sent Wednesday afternoon.