HUDSON, Colo. (KDVR) — Plans to convert a former prison in Hudson into a new immigration detention center are sparking controversy.
On Saturday, dozens of community members and immigrant rights advocates gathered outside the former Hudson Correctional Facility, which is scheduled to reopen later this year as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility. The demonstrators called on local leaders to block the project.
Greeley resident Jessica Hernandez said her family’s personal experience with immigration detention still affects them nearly two decades later.
“It will cause panic in our community,” Hernandez said.
Hernandez said her husband was arrested by immigration authorities in 2006 for being in the country illegally. He spent two months in a facility in Texas and another four months in the Aurora Detention Center. While her husband was detained, she gave birth to their son.
“Unfortunately, he had to meet our son at the GEO facility. That’s bad,” she said.
Hernandez said her husband was later deported, but has since returned to the United States as a legal resident.
Her sister Michelle, who asked to remain anonymous, said the proposed facility adds to her anxiety as her husband seeks citizenship.
“I am in fear because my husband is working on an operation,” she said. “Every day I’m afraid we might get stopped and both of us detained — or we might get arrested. And we don’t need that here, frankly.”
The sisters joined other protesters who gathered at the shuttered facility on Saturday, carrying signs and chanting against the planned reopening.
“I think it’s very clear that it’s rural and isolated,” Boulder resident Anne Skarritt said. “They’re trying to keep it out of the eyes of urban people. They’re trying to keep it hidden. So they know they’re ashamed of it.”
ICE did not respond to a request for comment on Saturday. However, in a previous statement to FOX31 in August, the agency said it ran out of space at the Aurora Detention Center after an increase in arrests. ICE said it is “exploring all options to meet current and future detention requirements.”
The 1,250-bed Hudson Correctional Facility has been closed since 2014. It was previously operated by GEO Group, the same private prison contractor that runs the Aurora facility.
The Hudson facility is expected to open by the end of 2025.