Citing environmental concerns, Colorado sues DHS to block new immigration detention facility

Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser filed suit against the Department of Homeland Security to block a planned 1,200-bed immigration detention facility in Hudson, Colorado, arguing DHS and ICE skipped the environmental review required before contracting GEO Group to renovate a vacant former state prison. Weiser says the state received 6,000 complaints from residents worried about air quality, water availability, and traffic in a town the facility would nearly double in population.

The complaint also cites habitat concerns for a mule deer migration corridor, a designated conservation area, and species including black-tailed prairie dogs and burrowing owls. Weiser notes the federal government previously completed environmental review before opening comparable facilities in El Paso and Laredo, Texas, making this omission harder to explain away.

Colorado is the third plaintiff to sue over the Hudson facility, joining a residents' lawsuit against the town council and a separate suit from advocacy groups GreenLatinos and the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition. GEO Group already runs Colorado's only operating immigration detention center in Aurora and is separately being sued for blocking a state tuberculosis investigation there.

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