Colorado has issued a public health order aimed at forcing GEO Group to provide information and access related to a tuberculosis investigation at the Aurora ICE detention center. According to CPR News, Adams County health officials were notified of a suspected TB case in June, a lab confirmed an active case on June 22, and repeated efforts by local and state health authorities to get records, contact-tracing information, and access reportedly went nowhere.
This should not require an immigration seminar, a protest chant, or another round of partisan interpretive dance. Border enforcement is a federal responsibility. Enforce the law. Secure the border. Detain people when appropriate. But when Colorado public-health officials are trying to investigate a communicable disease, answering basic questions is not optional government theater. CPR reports that ICE maintained the facility complied with applicable communicable-disease rules, while state officials said they still lacked the information needed to complete a routine investigation.
The state says the known risk to the general public remains low. Good. Nobody needs panic. What Colorado does need is an answer to a much simpler question: Why did it take a public health order to get basic cooperation?
The Bullet Point Brief
- This started in June, not yesterday. Adams County was notified of a suspected TB case on June 11, an active case was confirmed June 22, and the county issued its own public health order three days later. By August 13, the state was still trying to pry loose information. Government may move slowly, but tuberculosis does not fill out a requisition form and wait politely in the lobby.
- Colorado wants records, contacts, and transfer information. The new order requires GEO to provide medical information on confirmed or suspected active TB cases since June 1, lists of potential contacts, and information about discharges and transfers. That is called disease investigation. It is considerably less exotic than everyone is pretending.
- ICE says it followed the rules. Colorado says it could not verify that. ICE has said the facility complied with federal and Colorado communicable-disease requirements and that the infected detainee was treated and moved. State officials, meanwhile, said they were not given the information and access normally provided during investigations at schools, hospitals, workplaces, and correctional facilities. “Trust us” is not generally considered a contact-tracing protocol.
- This is not permission for an immigration-policy hijacking. Advocates will use the episode to attack detention. Others will be tempted to dismiss the entire controversy because immigration activists are involved. Both moves miss the immediate question. Did GEO and ICE cooperate with legitimate disease-control authorities? CPR reports the answer from state officials is no. Deal with that fact first. Save the ideological cage match for commercial break.
- The public deserves a timeline and somebody accountable for it. CPR lays out requests from county officials, the state health department, and the governor’s office stretching across weeks before Colorado finally issued its August 13 order. If those requests were improper, explain why. If they were proper, explain why they were blocked. The perimeter fence should not double as an accountability shield.
My Bottom Line
I support immigration enforcement. Strongly. A country that refuses to enforce its border eventually discovers it does not really have one. But supporting enforcement does not require pretending every federal agency or government contractor automatically becomes infallible the moment somebody outside the fence starts asking questions.
Colorado public-health officials have a legitimate job to do. According to CPR, they routinely investigate tuberculosis exposures in schools, hospitals, workplaces, and correctional facilities. When they show up at an immigration detention center, the answer cannot suddenly become, “Federal property, buzz off.” A secure facility that cannot provide basic public-health information is not secure. It is just expensive incompetence with a perimeter fence.
And spare me the inevitable political circus. This does not need to become a referendum on deportation, ICE abolition, sanctuary cities, Donald Trump, Phil Weiser’s campaign, or whatever slogan somebody printed before lunch. One active TB case was confirmed. Authorities wanted to investigate possible exposure. The state says cooperation did not come. Those are the facts CPR reports.
So give Coloradans the timeline. Tell us who knew what and when. Explain why health authorities say they were blocked. Show what safeguards are now protecting detainees, employees, contractors, first responders, visitors, and the surrounding community. Then get back to enforcing immigration law. Competently. Because law and order means more than locking the gate. It also means knowing what the hell is happening behind it.
Source: CPR News