DENVER — ACLU of Colorado filed a lawsuit today against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to obtain additional records on the agency’s plans for expanding immigration detention in Colorado and Wyoming, including at the vacant private prison Hudson Correctional Facility. This comes after ICE failed to comply with a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, filed by ACLU of Colorado, that sought details about the agency’s plans to expand detention in the state.
“Already, our previous requests and subsequent lawsuit have revealed how ICE may spend some of its record $45 billion budget intended for immigration detention,” said Tim Macdonald, ACLU of Colorado legal director. “We will continue to press ICE for more transparency and accountability as it rushes to reopen abandoned facilities to separate more families, lock up more workers, and intimidate more people with actions that strain due process and human decency.”
In April 2025, ACLU of Colorado and the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit that sought records pertaining to a Request for Information on ICE’s expansion plans in Colorado and Wyoming. In July, ICE provided over 110 pages of records outlining proposals made by private prison companies, including The GEO Group, Inc., the Baptiste Group, J&J Worldwide Services, and Apex Site Solutions. Those potential facilities include the Huerfano County Correctional Facility, Cheyenne Mountain Center, the Baptiste Migrant Detention Facility, and the Colorado Springs Migrant Detention Facility, in addition to the Hudson Correctional Facility. A month later, after push-back from the ACLU of Colorado, ICE provided less-redacted documents, revealing details on facility capacity and operation timelines.
The Hudson Correctional Facility is a private prison owned by Highlands REIT, a real estate investment trust based in Chicago, Ill., and was leased by The GEO Group, Inc. until 2020. It has been vacant since 2014. According to ICE’s documents, the Hudson Correctional Facility has a capacity of 1,256 people with day rooms that they claim can accommodate additional bunking. The facility also owns 37 adjacent acres of land and claims that it has already received a conditional use permit for a 1,000-bed expansion. Documents state that the facility was in “advanced talks with operators” as of February 2025. Independent reports by local and national media outlets confirm that ICE plans to use the Hudson facility in its initial expansion.
Local immigrants’ rights advocates are organizing protests at Hudson Correctional Facility to raise awareness of ICE’s expansion plans and the agency’s long history of detaining people in brutal and substandard conditions. As ICE scrambles to reopen the Hudson facility, ACLU of Colorado will continue to call on leaders to join the organization in denouncing this insidious expansion.
In addition to Macdonald, the legal team includes ACLU of Colorado senior staff attorney Sara Neel.
Read the updated RFI documents here.
Read the complaint below.
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