A surprise tour with a $50,000 fine is not oversight. It is a shutdown by invoice.
Trump-appointed judge blocks blue state's crackdown on ICE detention center
Colorado wrote a special bill for the only ICE jail in the state. A federal judge just froze the inspections they wanted GEO to buy.
Summary
- Fox reports Chief U.S. District Judge Daniel Domenico issued a preliminary injunction Thursday blocking key pieces of Colorado HB 26-1276 aimed at GEO Group's Aurora ICE Processing Center.
- Gov. Jared Polis signed the law June 4. Domenico wrote the bill singled out the state's lone ICE detention center, a federal contractor, for a special set of rules.
- Blocked provisions required unannounced inspections at least once every three months, billed to GEO, plus civil penalties up to $50,000 for each refused inspection.
- The judge said those visit counts and the penalty scheme do not apply to other detention facilities, so the law discriminates against a federal contractor.
Commentary
A night jailer in Aurora still walks a concrete hall that smells like bleach and vinyl and keeps men the courts already named. He does not need a state surprise tour billed to the contractor. He needs the federal detainer to hold.
That is the gap. Denver Democrats get a 'oversight' brand. ICE gets a $50,000 fine for locking the door the statute told it to lock. Supremacy is not a slogan. It is why a federal jail is not a city prop.
Ask every officer who still serves a detainer: if a state can invent a special bill for one ICE building, what is left of federal immigration law besides the letterhead?
Comments
I followed lawful orders. A state bill that singles out the federal contractor is the stunt.
Supremacy Clause exists for this exact bill. Domenico used it. Keep the injunction.
A capital that sabotages the only detention bed it has is not serious about law.
GEO pays for the raid. Activists toast the raid. Same statute, inverted.
I punch a clock at a plant that already follows OSHA. I do not get a special bill with my name on it.
If Aurora is the last ICE bed in Colorado, the last bed is the one they tried to choke.
Interior detention is national security when the next release is a stranger's wheel.
Fox printed HB 1276, quarterly raids, and $50,000. Argue those, not 'dignity.'
Keep the injunction. Keep the beds. Do not let a state bill unplug the only jail.