On December 2, Kamyar Samimi died an agonizing death in ICE custody at the immigration detention facility in Aurora, Colorado, operated by the GEO Group, a for-profit prison corporation. Yesterday, after a long and thorough investigation, ACLU of Colorado released our report, Cashing in on Cruelty: Stories of death, abuse and neglect at the GEO immigration detention facility in Aurora, which not only tells Samimi’s story, but also reveals many other stories of abuse, neglect and inadequate medical care in the Aurora facility.
The demonization and persecution of immigrants in our nation has reached crisis proportions, leading to separation of families at the border, caging of children, detention of asylum seekers and deportations that rip families apart. We think of these horrors as being focused on our borders, but the Aurora Contract Detention Facility is right in our backyard here in Colorado. ICE’s oversight of these for-profit detention facilities is clearly insufficient, which should not be a surprise given the Trump administration policies of cruelty meant to deter immigrants from coming to the U.S.
We must not forget that these policies are rooted in fear and in a festering ideology of white supremacy, not in a realistic assessment of the largely positive role immigrants play in our nation and our communities. We also must not forget that undocumented immigrants have rights under the U.S. Constitution. Many Constitutional rights are promised to persons, not just citizens, including due process and equal protection under the 14^th Amendment. Our national goal should be to fix our systems of legal immigration and to create a viable path to citizenship for undocumented members of our communities, not to engage in mass detention and deportation of immigrants. Nothing justifies the cruelty of inhumane detention or policies that intentionally separate children from their parents.
Mr. Samimi’s own story is one of medical cruelty and separation from his family after four decades in the United States as a Lawful Permanent Resident. His death and the other stories of abuse and neglect in the Aurora detention facility are not isolated cases. Just last week an eighth death under ICE custody this year occurred in Woodstock, Illinois, ending the life of 37-year-old Roberto Rodriguez-Espinoza. Detainees in these facilities are hidden from public view in conditions that are often terrible. Rarely do they have adequate legal representation. The incentives for care under for-profit detention are perverse, and even local government is often unaware of what is happening in these facilities. Our report is a glimpse inside the walls of the Aurora Contract Detention Facility, and we hope Coloradans and residents of Aurora will not look away. State and local reforms should include increased oversight of detention facilities and conditions within them, increased resources for bond funds and legal representation for detainees, and decreased local law enforcement cooperation with ICE.
Future generations looking back on what is happening to immigrants at the border and in detention today may ask us, “Did you know?” “What did you do about it?” ACLU of Colorado is determined to shine a light on detention in our own state, defend immigrant rights and bring about state and local policy change.
In Solidarity,
ACLU of Colorado Executive Director Nathan Woodliff-Stanley
 

At the American Civil Liberties Union, we consider Constitution Day on September 17 to be an important occasion, remembering the signing of the U.S. Constitution on that day in 1787.  Beginning with the words, “We the people,” the Constitution is the foundation of our nation’s system of government. The Constitution establishes essential principles of checks and balances, separation of powers, peaceful transitions of power, due process, equal protection, and everything promised in the Bill of Rights, from freedom of speech and protest to freedom from cruel and unusual punishment.
Unfortunately, many of these principles and promises that are so essential to our democracy are currently under attack. In some cases, they have never been fully realized in the first place. The work of the ACLU is to protect, defend, and advance civil rights and civil liberties for everyone. This means making the promises of the Constitution not just words on a piece of paper but real for everyone, not just for some.

A big part of our challenge is rooted in the history of our nation and the Constitution itself. Despite the inclusive language in our nation’s early days of “We the people”, “created equal”, and “liberty and justice for all,” the lived reality of our founding was anything but inclusive. The Constitution itself protected and upheld slavery. Rights were not honored for the indigenous people already here, and women were disenfranchised from the start. The central story of our nation’s history is the struggle to overcome these issues and to bring our reality closer to the inclusive values we have always proclaimed. The central question is which vision for our nation will ultimately prevail.
The threats to our democracy that we face today have taken a new form, but the underlying forces of white supremacy, patriarchy, violence and inequity are not new. The Constitution gives us powerful tools to protect the rights of all people and even to reform flaws rooted in the Constitution itself. We cannot afford to allow governmental checks and balances to break down, to let the integrity of our elections be destroyed, or to treat our nation’s leaders as above the law. More than ever, we need to protect an independent press, an independent judiciary, rights of protest, rights of privacy, separation of church and state, and freedoms not limited by race, gender, or any other aspect of human identity.
Constitution Day is a reminder that we all have a role to play in protecting our democracy and making it work better. ACLU of Colorado is committed to improving education about the Constitution, led by our new Community Education Manager, Jessica Howard.  And in everything else we do, whether fighting mass incarceration, challenging the criminalization of poverty, protecting immigrant families, defending reproductive rights, seeking to end the death penalty, or resisting voter suppression, we are using the tools of the Constitution to fulfill the best of our nation’s history and overcome the worst.