Author: Nico Brambila
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Small Colorado town grapples with ICE detention center opening
Thirty miles northeast of downtown Denver — where the Front Range loosens its grip, subdivisions give way to open fields and pickups outnumber Teslas — is the town of Hudson. Population 1,652. Hudson still feels like the kind of place where everybody knows the restaurant they’ll meet at for dinner. But it’s not at the…
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GEO impeding TB investigation at Aurora ICE detention center, Colorado officials say
Colorado officials said Tuesday that the GEO Group has failed to provide access required under state law for a tuberculosis investigation at the Aurora ICE Processing Center, hindering efforts to identify people who may have been exposed. The Adams County Health Department confirmed a detainee with active tuberculosis at the Aurora detention facility last month.…
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Protesters descend on Hudson Town Council days after prison funded to reopen as ICE facility
HUDSON — Nearly 200 protesters, including current and former members of the Democratic Party’s progressive wing, descended on Hudson on Wednesday, gathering outside Town Hall about an hour before the regularly scheduled town council meeting to protest the reopening of the town’s shuttered prison as an immigration detention center. Although the detention center was not…
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$529M ICE contract will nearly double Colorado’s immigrant detention capacity
The federal government has signed a five-year contract with private prison company GEO Group that will effectively double Colorado’s immigration detention capacity to about 2,700 beds. Signed July 9, the contract comes a year after the Trump administration told Colorado’s congressional delegation it planned to reopen the shuttered Hudson Correctional Facility as an immigration detention…
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Colorado hospitals poised to receive $455 million Medicaid funding boost
After years of losing out on the federal dollars, Colorado has been approved to tap a well-known Medicaid financing tool that is expected to bring more than $450 million to hospitals. Colorado did not pursue the financing tool until more recently, with hospital system executives earlier saying that decision had “set Colorado back.” The Centers…
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Cherry Creek School District paid law firm $114K, including $40K for political consultant, over superintendent allegations
The Cherry Creek School District paid $114,000 to hire outside counsel to provide the Board of Education with legal advice as it navigated the allegations that were swirling around the former superintendent. Fisher Phillips invoices obtained through a Colorado Open Records Act request show the district paid $114,191.50 from March through June. Roughly a third…
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DPS Superintendent Alex Marrero misses cut for Miami-Dade job
Denver Public Schools (DPS) Superintendent Alex Marrero did not make the short list of candidates vying for the top job with the Miami-Dade County Public School District. The Miami-Dade school board narrowed the field from 21 applicants to six semifinalists. The list includes two Miami-Dade administrators and four other education leaders from Florida, Texas and…
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‘Explosive’ diarrhea among symptoms as parasitic illness hits Colorado
A fecal parasite that can contaminate food and water is causing “explosive” diarrhea across more than a dozen states, including Colorado, health officials said Tuesday. Preliminary data show Colorado has recorded 90 cases of cyclosporiasis since January, Hope Shuler, a spokesperson for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, said in an email. That’s…
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Civil rights law firm sues DPS over race-based redistricting
A civil rights law firm based out of Virginia has filed a lawsuit against Denver Public Schools, alleging Colorado’s largest school district redrew its five district seats with an “illegal racial intent” that violates the Fifteenth Amendment. Filed in U.S. District Court by the Public Interest Legal Foundation, the lawsuit seeks declaratory and injunctive relief…
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Cherry Creek spent $65K on investigation, but invoices remain secret, records show
After previously refusing to disclose the cost associated with the investigation into the former superintendent and his wife, the former human resources chief, Cherry Creek School District officials partially released records showing the cost to taxpayers: $65,054.85. The Denver Gazette obtained “invoice cover sheets” through a June 12 Colorado Open Records Act request seeking —…