The Democratic half of Colorado’s U.S. House delegation visited Colorado’s immigrant detention facility Monday and emerged with more questions than answers.
“After my 10th visit, this has been the most difficult visit in terms of getting information, getting answers out of the facility, out of the employees and being obstructed from conducting full oversight that I’ve had in over six years,” said Rep. Jason Crow, whose Congressional district includes the facility in Aurora. “It’s unacceptable.”
For starters, workers at the facility, managed by the private company GEO, declined to tell the representatives how many detainees were inside.
Crow, along with three of his Democratic colleagues representing the Denver metro area, Reps. Diana DeGette, Joe Neguse and Brittany Pettersen, okayed the tour of the GEO detention facility ahead of time with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
They were unhappy about that too, saying planned visits aren’t always the most honest.
“I've been in a lot of correctional facilities in my life, and if you have to give seven days notice, they clean up pretty good,” said DeGette, who represents Denver. “And we were told that the people in there were told to clean up and to spiff up and to make things look good. I'd like to see what happens normally in that facility.”
In addition to not being given a population count, the representatives said they also could not learn characteristics of the detainees, including how many had pending or prior criminal charges as opposed to those picked up as collateral detentions. All their questions were referred to Immigration and Customs Enforcement headquarters in Washington, D.C.
Crow said he knows the office in Denver has this information, they’re just not giving it up.
“Because during intake, they actually assign people a level … a red, orange, green and blue based on the criminal records, so I know the facility knows who has been picked up because they’ve committed a violent crime versus everyone else,” he said. “My guess is if the last eight months have been any indication, we're not going to be getting a lot of great answers out of Washington either.”
The members also said they weren’t given clear guidance about how consistently detainees were able to access legal advice and whether they were given honest information about how to self-deport.
DeGette noted she did see Jeanette Vizguerra, a high-profile detainee inside the facility and a constituent of hers. Vizguerra has been in Colorado since the 1990s and was an outspoken critic of ICE and the country’s immigration policies. She was arrested in March and is fighting her deportation, but remains in custody.
The planning and authorization required for the visit on Monday directly undermines the Congressional role of oversight of the federal government, the members said.
Both Crow and Neguse, in recent months, have been turned away when they’ve tried unannounced visits, they said. At least one Republican in the Colorado delegation, Rep. Gabe Evans of the 8th district, has also visited the GEO facility. In June he said there were about 1,300 detainees being held there, with 57 percent of them having some kind of criminal history or pending charge.
“It is clear that the administration is violating federal law with respect to its unlawful policies regarding unannounced visits to detention facilities, as well as their policies regarding visits to field offices, which is why we're suing the Trump administration,” Neguse said. “There were difficulties getting information. And there’s certainly a lot that we intend to follow up on in the days and weeks ahead.”
Crow’s office has been routinely visiting the ICE facility since 2019, when there was a Mumps outbreak there. Usually, the congressman sent staffers, and those visits were a blend of announced and unannounced, but Crow’s staff says the GEO facility had always been cooperative, allowing staffers to test food temperatures, talk to detainees, evaluate the health facilities and log how many were detained and how many were released on any given week or month.
Then came 2025 and the second Trump term. They say their visit on Monday left all four of them with more questions.
“We spoke with a detainee, we visited the pods, we visited the healthcare facility, and it led to many, many more questions,” Crow said.
Pettersen said when she walked through the facility, it felt “like a prison” even though it’s technically a civil detention facility.
“We care deeply about making sure that the people who are being held there are treated humanely, that they have access to the healthcare that they need, but also that they're able to reach for assistance outside of this facility,” she said.
