Tell Hudson Leadership: NO MORE Detention Centers in our State!


As Trump’s deportation apparatus leaves families broken, traumatized, and reeling from loss, we are urging Hudson leadership to OPPOSE the reopening of the Hudson Correctional Facility as a new detention center.

The proposed “Bighorn Detention Facility” poses a threat to Hudson and its surrounding community as GEO, a for-profit prison company, would brutally incarcerate up to 1,500 of our neighbors. This would create liability and widespread suffering on multiple fronts:

  • Detention Centers do not act in the interest of this community: Hudson residents were recently surveyed on the subject, and nearly 42% of respondents as well as close to 20,000 petition signers, oppose opening a detention center in Hudson. Colorado poll results reflect 54% of voters oppose federal deportation efforts and 64% are concerned ICE is detaining people that should not be held.
  • GEO is resistant to oversight and has no vested interest in standards of care: GEO group has a disreputable track record, having been the subject of many lawsuits, including forced labor, medical neglect and maltreatment, inhospitable living conditions, sexual assault, and wrongful death. GEO recently attempted to sue the state of Colorado after it passed a bill requiring entities like GEO to provide adequate nutrition, living conditions, and medical care. This is a clear indication of GEO’s motive to evade accountability and oversight.
  • Hudson does not have adequate resources to support a detention center: Currently, Hudson’s water stores are insufficient to supply a detention center of this capacity while maintaining projected town growth; evidence lies in the Town Council’s recent decision to put a moratorium on new data centers. No National Environmental Policy Act analysis has been done for the facility.
  • Detention Centers do not make communities safer: On average, 70% of people detained by ICE have no criminal conviction, and there are many lawful permanent residents, wrongfully detained U.S. citizens, and asylum seekers held without cause. ICE, however, relies on excessive force, sometimes resulting in death, as an enforcement tactic. This sows the seeds of distrust in local law enforcement and significantly inhibits the use of social services.