The GEO Group, Inc (GEO) announced on July 13, 2026, that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has awarded GEO a five-year contract to open and operate a new immigration detention center in Hudson, Colorado. The ACLU of Colorado condemns the opening of another immigration detention center in the state, what is now being called the Big Horn Facility, a former prison that has been moth-balled for more than a decade and was known as the Hudson Correctional Facility.
“ICE’s covert opening of the Hudson facility is another disgraceful and shameful example of the Trump administration’s anti-immigrant fanaticism,” said Olivia Mendoza, ACLU of Colorado executive director. “ICE has resisted oversight and accountability for decades. Instead of reining in the agency, both Congress and the Trump administration have poured unprecedented amounts of money into fulfilling the campaign’s mass detention and deportation agenda. This is a profound betrayal of Colorado’s values — all while shareholders profit enormously from human suffering and misery.”
“At every turn, ICE has made it nearly impossible for the public to learn about its plans for expanded detention here in Colorado,” said Tim Macdonald, ACLU of Colorado legal director. “We have fought tooth and nail over the last year through public records litigation to get basic information about ICE’s expansion plan, but ICE has tried to hide those plans behind heavily redacted documents at every turn. As ICE and the GEO Group proceed to reopen this long-dormant prison, we will fight for transparency, oversight, and accountability.”
“Coloradans do not support ICE’s mass detention and deportation agenda, in fact, they have been actively fighting it,” said Jen Samano, ACLU of Colorado director of advocacy. “For months, people have been organizing to stop the reopening of the Hudson facility, urging local and state officials to do what they can to halt this expansion or demand stronger oversight and transparency. We will continue to do so. Our immigrant neighbors deserve to thrive, and to live in peace, not in fear of being disappeared into dangerous and inhumane detention camps.”
The American Civil Liberties Union and ACLU of Colorado filed a lawsuit against ICE in April 2025 after the agency failed to respond to public records requests about expanding immigration detention capacity in Colorado and Wyoming. The documents revealed that the Hudson facility was one of several facilities jockeying to scale the Trump administration’s detention expansion. ACLU of Colorado attorneys pressured ICE into releasing less redacted documents outlining details about the Hudson facility, as well as additional internal emails.
The Denver Contract Detention Facility, more commonly known as the GEO facility in Aurora, Colorado, is another immigration detention facility in Colorado operated by GEO. It is infamous for its brutal conditions, medical neglect, inadequate nutrition, and restrictions on legal counsel for people in detention.