This story was produced as part of the Colorado Capitol News Alliance. It first appeared at cpr.org.
On Monday, as Benjamin Coulson picked up a steak quesadilla from Carniceria Mexicana, he learned about the ICE detention center in the works, just 10 minutes south of there.
“I don't think it's a good thing. They're trying to keep what they think is bad people out of the country, but then there's also good people,” he said. “It goes both ways, but I don't know that they need to do all that work here.”
The currently defunct jail in Hudson is located about 30 miles northeast of Denver. It would be the second big immigration center in Colorado, with the other in Aurora.
The GEO Group, which also runs an ICE Processing Center in Aurora, anticipates the Hudson facility will have a capacity of 1,200 people. The Aurora center has a capacity of 1,530, and last year, they were reportedly nearing that limit.
The facility has been a flash point in the Front Range, while the plans for the new detention center spread. It led to several protests at the proposed site and has drawn criticism from Colorado lawmakers. As for the people who live in the area? Many aren’t happy with the ICE contract worth millions of dollars.
Hudson’s town manager did not respond to a request for comment.
Community response
Coulson, who’s a welder, works with many Hispanic people in the oil field.
“This community is primarily Hispanic descent, and it's going to take away a lot of work. A lot of those guys work hard. They work for my boss too, so I'm going to lose some coworkers, and I don't really want that to happen,” he said.
Vince Beeson, Coulson’s friend and coworker, said he’s seen good things come out of immigration enforcement.
“There's been a couple of raids down by my house. I know there's big old drug busts with ICE and DEA, so they took a bunch of the bad ones out, but it's just their job. They’re doing what they’re told to do,” he said.
Beeson thinks that in blue-collar towns like Hudson, not many people would oppose the detention center.
Backyard resistance
Elisheba Fay lives in Keenesburg, a quick drive northeast of Hudson on Interstate 76. When she found out about plans for a detention center, she wanted to get involved and help stop it.
“This is basically my backyard. So I've been trying to do anything I can to influence the outcomes,” she said.
She said she’s concerned with how people are treated in detention centers.
“I fear that the things that have been done at other detention centers will continue and escalate, that people will be mistreated, abused, killed,” she said.
Fay also worries that this center will use up resources, like water, which has been particularly scarce this year.
“Nobody has the water to spare on detaining people that don't need to be detained,” she said.
The local impact
Hudson and Keenesburg have several Mexican restaurants, like Tonalli Mexican Taste, where Gema Valenzuela works. She’s worried about more ICE officers and a detention center in the area, especially for her loved ones who commute to work.
“It's getting scary just to see the news and everyone getting stopped. It is pretty scary. And being so close to us makes me even more scared, nervous,” she said.
She had thought the detention center wasn’t happening because of community backlash.
“I guess not,” she said. “I feel a community could change it, but at the same time, will they hear the community? Does it matter? It makes you think it doesn't matter, because I know they've tried to stop it and it didn't really work.”
Activists have protested the proposed plans for the detention center for months. Andrea Loya, who runs Casa de Paz, an organization that helps immigrants reunite with families, told CPR that the city of Hudson denied that it was happening.
