Colorado health official gives Aurora detention center until Friday to open doors to inspectors in tuberculosis probe

Seth Klamann, The Denver Post on Jul 15, 2026

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Colorado’s top health official has given the federal immigration detention center in Aurora until Friday to open its doors to outside health inspectors investigating a confirmed case of tuberculosis.

In the letter sent Tuesday evening, Jill Hunsaker Ryan, the executive director of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, also asked the Aurora facility’s warden and health administrator to allow inspectors to review medical records for the detainee who contracted the potentially fatal respiratory illness. A positive test result was identified late last month.

She directed officials to provide facility access to inspectors investigating the case, as well as records for other individuals who have been screened for TB and the information necessary to determine the disease’s potential spread.

The escalation came amid a nearly three-week standoff between Adams County health officials and the Aurora facility’s operators and federal officials — who, local officials say, have blocked investigators from interviewing detainees, inspecting the facility and reviewing records. Adams County officials issued a public health order last month seeking that information after the Geo Group, which operates the facility, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which has ultimate control over it, refused to cooperate.

“These barriers prevent public health officials from determining the scope of potential exposure and taking appropriate steps to protect detainees, employees, contractors, visitors, people who have been transferred or released, and others who may have been exposed,” Hunsaker Ryan wrote to the facility’s leaders in the letter. “Immediate cooperation is necessary for the investigation to proceed.”

A spokesman for Geo Group did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment Wednesday afternoon. Representatives for ICE and the Department of Homeland Security told The Denver Post earlier this week that there were no active tuberculosis cases in the 1,530-bed facility, though they did not respond when asked if that meant officials had moved any individual who had tested positive.

The agencies have not publicly acknowledged the positive test, which health officials said they identified on June 22 using samples taken from the facility.

In a Wednesday statement to The Post, Gov. Jared Polis said he was “deeply concerned by the reports of active Tuberculosis at the GEO facility in Aurora and the inability for local public health to do their jobs because of interference from the facility.”

“We are focused on protecting public health and urge the GEO Group to let Adams County Public Health do their jobs to investigate this alleged outbreak, including providing any necessary testing and treatment to prevent disease spread,” he wrote.

Immigration attorneys and advocates have told The Post that a number of detainees in the facility have been tested for TB in recent weeks and that at least one person had been removed from the facility. Because of Geo’s and ICE’s refusal to provide full access to the facility, health officials have said they cannot confirm reports of additional cases or quarantines.

Hunsaker Ryan did not say what the state will do if Geo and ICE do not comply with the state’s requests by Friday. A CDPHE spokeswoman did not respond to follow-up questions. But the letter lists the state laws that underpin the requests, as well as health inspectors’ legal responsibility to investigate TB cases.

The standoff is not the first time, in Colorado or elsewhere, that ICE and its detention center contractors have refused access to outside inspectors.

Adams County officials admonished the Aurora facility earlier this year for failing to provide sufficient information for an investigation into a separate suspected outbreak. In Washington state, a federal judge earlier this month ordered Geo to allow state health inspectors into a Tacoma detention center after the facility repeatedly denied them access.

After ICE moved to block members of Congress from conducting unannounced visits to detention centers, another federal judge ordered the Trump administration to grant access to the lawmakers, including Colorado’s U.S. Reps. Jason Crow and Joe Neguse.

Geo has also resisted recent attempts to more tightly regulate the conditions of its facilities. Last month, the company filed a lawsuit challenging a new state law in Colorado that requires regular outside inspections of detention centers; that legislation also covered investigations of communicable diseases.

On Monday, Geo Group announced that it had signed a contract worth up to $528.6 million to open a new detention center in Hudson, on the grounds of a shuttered prison the company once operated.

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