DENVER (KDVR) — The American Civil Liberties Union is making Colorado a battleground state against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as it sues to access what the nonprofit says should be publicly requestable documents.
According to the ACLU and the ACLU of Colorado, it all stems from attempts by ICE to expand immigration detention in Colorado and Wyoming.
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NewsNation affiliate KDVR learned during an exclusive ride-along with ICE Denver agents earlier this week that there are plans to double the number of available beds for immigration arrests in the Denver area.
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KDVR was told the new facility will have at least as many beds as the more than 1,500 beds in the existing Aurora ICE Contract Facility, and said the new facility would likely be located in Hudson and open by the end of the year to handle a planned increase in arrests.
However, the ACLU has not been given such information, according to its lawsuit. The lawsuit states that on Feb. 14, ICE issued a request for information on Sam.gov, searching for possible immigration detention facilities, including in areas covered by ICE’s Denver Enforcement and Removal Operations Field Office.
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Responses were needed for the RFI by Feb. 21, and on March 7, the ACLU submitted a Freedom of Information Act request to learn more about those plans and potential contract proposals. The advocacy group said in its lawsuit that this should have been enough time for ICE to have received the responses and be able to release the responses as requested.
“We refuse to allow ICE and other federal agencies to hide their work from the public,” said Tim Macdonald, ACLU of Colorado Legal Director. “ICE cannot continue to withhold basic information about its operations and plans for expanded immigration detention from journalists, advocacy organizations, and our communities.”
FOIA requests must be responded to within 20 working days
Under U.S. law, agencies must respond to FOIA requests within 20 working days. The ACLU says that ICE acknowledged it had received the FOIA request on March 12 and noted in its lawsuit, filed on April 21, that more than 30 working days have passed since the request was filed.
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Some documents requested by the ACLU from ICE through FOIA requests have been returned, although redacted — the ACLU shows on its website documents from ICE that detail plans to expand ICE detention facilities in 10 states, including California, Michigan, Kansas, New Mexico, Nevada, Washington and Texas. However, details in Wyoming and Colorado have not been made available.
“ICE has taken aggressive steps to expand immigration detention at an unprecedented rate in service of President Trump’s campaign promise to tear apart families and deport immigrants who contribute to our communities and our economy,” said Eunice Cho, Senior Staff Attorney at the ACLU’s National Prison Project, in a release on Monday. “Already, we are seeing the consequences of the administration’s immigration policies – and the public has the right to know how their taxpayer dollars are being misused in service of this dystopian agenda.”
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The ACLU said it filed the lawsuit after reports in April that the Trump Administration had sought proposals for up to $45 billion to expand immigrant detention in America.
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The civil rights advocacy group also said that private prison companies like the GEO Group, which runs the Aurora ICE Detention Facility, have celebrated the president’s plan for mass detention and deportations, saying the prison company’s chairman called it an “unprecedented opportunity.”
