People urge Hudson town leaders to fight immigration detention center 14%
By Colleen Slevin57%
7/16/2026, 10:00:00 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 33 faulty reasoning types, including Appeal to Emotion, Framing Effect, and Appeal to Authority, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 23.7% saturation with 401 hits. Analysis detected 2,277 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,691 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 30.7% and a BS Rank of 14% (14,234 of 16,550 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 86.00% of the article peer group.
HUDSON — Opponents of a plan to transform a former private prison in Hudson into Colorado’s second immigration detention center packed a sometimes raucous town council meeting Wednesday, calling on the town to fight and stop what many called a “concentration camp” they said would be a stain on the community.
People — many from other cities around the Front Range — lined up along the center aisle in the town hall meeting room for a chance to speak for three minutes during a public comment period that came after the meeting had briefly shut down due to vocal protesters outside the building.
Over 2 ½ hours, people in the audience applauded and snapped their fingers in agreement with speakers, sometimes saying “Shame!”
Police officers approached the podium to cut people off who continued to speak after their allotted time was up.
The meeting followed months of protests outside the former Hudson Correctional Facility, which had been speculated in recent months to become U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s next state detention center.
On Monday, the GEO Group announced that it has signed a five-year, $528.7 million contract to reopen the nearly 1,200-bed prison as the Big Horn immigration detention center for ICE in the town about 30 miles northeast of Denver along Interstate 76.
Many speakers urged Hudson town council members to explore legal options to stop the detention center from opening and to schedule a vote on whether they support the center.
Former State Rep.
Tim Hernandez told council members that if the detention center opened, U.S.
Customs and Immigration Enforcement would wait at the nearby elementary school to arrest Latino parents during school pickup.
He asked everyone who opposed the detention center to stand, and nearly everyone in the room rose.
“In the end history will remember who stood and who sat,” he said.
Meeting briefly shut down
The meeting opened Wednesday night with council members talking about typical town matters such as regulations for short-term rentals and food trucks.
Anxious people in the audience, waiting for the public comment portion of the meeting to address the town council, held signs with messages like “No ICE Concentration Camps” and “‘Why didn’t anyone stop them?’ — Future History Books.”
Some had painted black Xs over their mouths.
A protester holds a sign inside the Hudson Town Hall during a public hearing on the proposed Hudson Immigration Detention Center Wednesday, July 15, 2026, in Hudson.
The hearing included an opportunity for members of the public to comment on the proposal.
(Cheney Orr, The Colorado Sun)
Someone at a rally in the courtyard outside the building pressed an upside down U.S. flag into a window of the meeting room.
Then others began banging on the windows.
A woman in the audience said, “They don’t want your concentration camps.
I think that’s what they’re trying to say.”
After a rain of comments and curse words from the audience about ICE, President Donald Trump and Gaza, one man told one of the speakers to “shut your pie hole.”
Mayor Joe Hammock asked police standing guard in the room to stop the disruption outside.
Town council members and staff left their seats and went into a side room.
Outside, police officers watched as people chanted things like “Stand up, fight back” and “ICE out of Colorado” while a brass band played.
The meeting resumed about 15 minutes later.
By that time, Stephanie Edwards of Hudson had already left the meeting, believing it was over.
She had planned to speak during the public comment period to request that her dirt road be paved.
Edwards, who supports opening the detention center, said opponents should protest GEO instead of coming to Hudson.
“It’s sitting empty.
Why not use it for something good?”
Edwards said of the center, which she said would hold people who had violated the law.
Protestors yell at a police officer outside the Hudson Town Hall as a public hearing on the proposed Hudson Immigration Detention Center is postponed due to noise from the protest outside Wednesday, July 15, 2026, in Hudson.
The hearing included an opportunity for members of the public to comment on the proposal.
(Cheney Orr, The Colorado Sun)
The GEO Group is the same company that operates the immigration detention facility in Aurora under a contract with ICE.
Immigration advocates have long criticized the Florida-based company for not providing adequate health care to detainees.
It’s currently in a standoff with local health officials who say GEO is blocking their investigation into the possible spread of tuberculosis there.
Dana Miller, an immigration activist from Denver who has participated in protests at the former prison, said opening the detention center in Hudson “doubles the inhumanity” of a troubled system.
“We just don’t want any more of this horrible system and the maltreatment of human beings,” said Miller, who helped organize opponents to attend the town council meeting.
Hudson on the radar
The deal was not a surprise.
Colorado’s congressional delegation was told last summer that federal immigration officials planned to use the former prison, which closed in 2014, as a detention center amid the Trump Administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration.
The American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado obtained records about ICE’s expansion plans in Colorado and Wyoming in January.
They showed Hudson’s former prison was one of the sites being considered but details about when it could open as a detention center were not released.
A drone view of the proposed Hudson Immigration Detention Center Wednesday, July 15, 2026, in Hudson.
(Cheney Orr, The Colorado Sun)
“This additional detention capacity strengthens ICE’s ability to implement the Administration’s immigration enforcement priorities, restore integrity to the nation’s immigration system, and protect public safety,” the department said in a statement.
Hudson officials say federal agencies haven’t provided any details about the center’s operations and stress they don’t have power over what happens at the complex, on the dry, sagebrush covered prairie about four miles from the town’s center.
Mayor Joe Hammock listens as a protestor speaks inside the Hudson Town Hall during a public hearing on the proposed Hudson Immigration Detention Center Wednesday, July 15, 2026, in Hudson.
The hearing included an opportunity for members of the public to comment on the proposal.
(Cheney Orr, The Colorado Sun)
“The Town does not have approval authority over federal immigration detention operations at this private facility,” the town said in a statement after the GEO contract was announced.
However, the town said it is preparing for potential impacts from the center, including coordinating with emergency response agencies.
But it mostly remains in the dark.
Before the meeting started, Town Manager Bryce Lange told audience members the town wouldn’t speculate or answer questions beyond what is known about the center.
He said officials were still trying to establish direct communication with GEO to learn about the center’s operational timeline as well as staffing and traffic.
“The town will continue preparing for potential local impacts,” he said.
Details of the deal
Both of Colorado’s Democratic U.S. senators slammed the plan to open the center in Hudson.
U.S.
Sen.
Michael Bennet faulted the Trump Administration for agreeing to open a center in a rural area, away from organizations that can offer help and oversight.
Sen.
John Hickenlooper said a new center will exacerbate problems already caused by ICE.
“ICE is terrorizing our communities, separating families and killing innocent people.
A new facility in Hudson will make a horrible situation even worse,” Hickenlooper said on X.
The Aurora center can hold up to 1,532 people.
The facility in Hudson can hold up to 1,188 people, according to GEO.
That’s equivalent to 72% of the 1,651 people the 2020 Census counted as living in Hudson.
People gather inside the Hudson Town Hall during a public hearing on the proposed Hudson Immigration Detention Center Wednesday, July 15, 2026, in Hudson.
The hearing included an opportunity for members of the public to comment on the proposal.
(Cheney Orr, The Colorado Sun)
The lease agreement with the owner of the former prison, Chicago-based Highlands REIT, suggests it could still be several months before detainees are housed there.
According to a federal financial filing, GEO’s lease takes effect Aug. 1 but it doesn’t have to start paying monthly rent of $250,000 for another four months.
After another two months or after the facility is housing detainees, whichever comes first, GEO’s rent will go up to $983,333 a month.
The rent will increase by 3% each year after that.
Watching and waiting
Andrea Loya, executive director of Casa de Paz, which helps people released from the Aurora detention center get basic necessities and reunite with their families, is preparing to have a van stationed near the center, which is about four miles outside town, when it opens to help detainees who are released.
It also has one outside the Aurora center.
Otherwise, people released would have to walk to a nearby Love’s Travel Stop or the town to get help, she said.
“There’s really nothing close in Hudson,” said Loya, noting that sometimes people are released using wheelchairs or walkers.
A police officer walks through a crowd of protestors outside the Hudson Town Hall as a public hearing on the proposed Hudson Immigration Detention Center is postponed due to noise from the protest outside Wednesday, July 15, 2026, in Hudson.
The hearing included an opportunity for members of the public to comment on the proposal.
(Cheney Orr, The Colorado Sun)
Once she said they saw a large truck making a delivery there.
Last month, they saw the pavement around the old prison being repaired, she said.
Detainees released from Aurora, meanwhile, reported that guards there were grumbling about being told they would have to go work at the Hudson facility, she said.
Even though the contract has been signed, Loya said opponents will continue to try to stop it from being opened and shut it down if it does start operating.
“This corporation doesn’t have the capacity to manage the lives they are managing in Aurora.
They don’t have the capacity to manage more lives,” she said.
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