Aurora council insists on cooperation from GEO Group over tuberculosis investigation at ICE facility

The Aurora City Council approved a statement Monday that demands the private company that runs the immigration detention center in the city cooperate with public health officials in an investigation of a tuberculosis case.

“It’s in our interest to protect the public health of our community to be able to merely make a statement that requests or demands that (The GEO Group) comply on behalf of our residents,” Aurora Mayor Mike Coffman told council members during a study session.

“This is really not how you feel about the issue of immigration or immigration enforcement or any particular entity,” he said. “It’s simply a public health question.”

The Adams County Health Department issued a public health order in late June to investigate a confirmed case of tuberculosis in the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center run by GEO. Since then, despite pressure from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and other state officials, GEO has not granted access or given Adams County the information it needs to conduct a public health investigation into the case, as required by state law. Immigration advocates suspect there have been multiple cases, based on conversations with people detained in the facility, and The Guardian reported there could be a dozen cases.

Immigration advocates press for action on tuberculosis case at Aurora ICE facility

“Before recent legislation about oversight of civil immigration detention facilities, the state has long had, as the county has long had, authority to act in cases of a potential outbreak of an infectious disease,” said state Sen. Mike Weissman, an Aurora Democrat who sponsored a recent law requiring more frequent safety inspections at the facility for things like food standards and confinement conditions. Another state law requiring notification and public health investigations, specifically around tuberculosis, has long been in effect.

“For my part, I have vigorously encouraged the state to make use of that authority to protect public health in the facility and in the broader metro Denver community beyond that,” he told Newsline.

An unnamed ICE spokesperson said earlier this month that there was one person at the center on June 25 with tuberculosis, and that person was “treated, cleared, and removed from the country.” During an oversight visit on July 15, staff from U.S. Rep. Jason Crow’s office were told by immigration officials that they identified 61 people who were exposed to that initial case and that one person was being monitored.

“The fact is, GEO is not cooperative, and so we have an incident here. There could be other incidents down the road,” Coffman said.

In an earlier statement, Attorney General Phil Weiser said his office is ready to work with Gov. Jared Polis and other state health officials “to bring GEO into compliance with the law,” but that has not been backed up by enforcement efforts or litigation. The attorney general’s office has the authority to enforce a public health order issued by the state’s health department. On Monday, Coffman said he thinks the county and state “may be prepared to go to court to force (GEO) to comply.”

ACHD spokesperson Jennifer Lucero-Alvarez wrote in an email that the county does not have any updates about Coffman’s comments and said the “legal and policy issues presented now extend beyond a local enforcement matter” because of GEO’s unresponsiveness.

“Communicable disease control is inherently a matter of statewide concern and State leadership is necessary to defend and uniformly enforce Colorado law, maintain the integrity of the State’s public health authority, ensure consistent statewide application of communicable disease requirements, and provide a coordinated governmental response in a matter involving federal interests,” she wrote. “We continue to work closely with our legal counsel, CDPHE, and other state partners to evaluate all available options.”

A Weiser spokesperson wrote in an email that CDPHE and the governor’s office are “taking the lead” on the situation.

“The state is in complete agreement with Adams County Health Department’s requests to GEO, and we are aware that the County has already sought to compel cooperation through a public health order. A second public health order would seek substantially the same information,” CDPHE spokesperson Hope Shuler wrote in an email. “Rather than duplicating steps that have already been taken, at this time, we continue to seek avenues we can take to break this impasse.”

Editor’s note: This story was updated at 12:00 p.m. on July 29 to include comments from CDPHE.