Posted June 5, 2025
Few Trump administration agencies are so out of control as Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
ICE in recent months has disappeared people from American communities, a hallmark of unaccountable authoritarianism. The agency releases scant information to the public about its activities, and it withholds information even in court proceedings. Its agents wield the awesome power to deprive people of their liberty, and they’ve used that power to deposit hundreds of people in a brutal foreign prison, likely for life.
Demand for oversight has rarely been so great, and no tool of ICE oversight should be left unused.
Members of Congress have at least one method by which to oversee the agency — they can show up at ICE detention centers unannounced and perform inspections. But U.S. representatives and senators in Colorado exercise this authority too infrequently.
ICE this year has undertaken aggressive immigration enforcement efforts as part of President Donald Trump’s plan for mass deportations. In Colorado, which Trump made a particular focus of his anti-immigration program, the agency has undertaken several raids and other operations that have resulted in scores of people being held at its detention center in Aurora, operated by private prison company the GEO Group.
At a time when Democrats seem overwhelmed and impotent as the Trump administration dismantles constitutional order, every available counterweight should be applied with maximum force.
People there are often denied constitutionally guaranteed due process, targeted for their exercise of First Amendment rights, and held without being charged with a crime, according to court documents and immigration advocates. About 12 detainees were removed from the Aurora facility to the notorious CECOT prison in El Salvador.
Federal authorities have gone about this business with essentially no transparency. That’s where oversight comes in.
In 2019, U.S. Rep. Jason Crow, a Colorado Democrat, tried to inspect the ICE facility after learning about poor health conditions there. He was denied entry, prompting him to pursue on-site oversight authority, which he helped secure in law. Members of Congress, according to language that is included annually in appropriations legislation, now have the authority to conduct unannounced oversight visits at Department of Homeland Security facilities.
This was no empty gesture. Crow has routinely invoked the authority ever since, and he posts to his website reports about visits to the detention center in Aurora. His office has already completed two oversight visits last month.
This is the same authority by which three U.S. representatives from New Jersey recently tried to conduct oversight at an ICE facility in that state. They were denied entry, and the Trump administration charged one of the lawmakers with a crime.
But ICE’s refusal to respect oversight authority is no cause to idle it. It’s reason to assert it to its fullest extent.
Crow should not be alone in conducting inspections in Aurora. Democratic U.S. Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper of Colorado should also show up. Hickenlooper has expressed anger over the Trump administration’s lawless approach to immigration enforcement, even suggesting in April that “the country’s going to rise up” in response. But to a reporter’s question about what senators like him could do, he said, “You want me to get my pitchfork?”
No. But lawmakers can get inside a facility where Colorado residents, snatched off the streets by the federal government, now face unconstitutional removal to prisons run by foreign dictators, and at least demonstrate to ICE and the people of Colorado that they’ve got their eye on MAGA malfeasance in Denver’s backyard.
Other members of the U.S. House from Colorado can also exercise oversight of ICE. The detention center in Aurora sits in Crow’s district, and territorial deference is doubtless a factor, especially among fellow Democrats. But Crow could arrange a multimember visit. The detention center in New Jersey sits in McIver’s district, and two other members of Congress from neighboring districts had arrived to inspect the facility with McIver when they were denied entry. Strength in numbers sends a message that the members will do everything they can to hold an outpost of authoritarianism in Colorado to account.
A member of Hickenlooper’s staff accompanied a Crow staff member during one inspection in March. In response to questions from Newsline about whether they’d visited the Aurora facility, the six Democratic members of the Colorado congressional delegation — Bennet, Hickenlooper, Crow and Reps. Diana DeGette, Joe Neguse and Brittany Pettersen — responded in a joint statement: “Oversight is a key part of our jobs, and a responsibility we don’t take lightly. The Trump Administration’s recent attempts to intimidate Members of Congress from conducting oversight of ICE detention facilities are alarming — and we will not back down. We are fully committed to providing the necessary oversight and transparency of the GEO ICE facility in Aurora to ensure these facilities are run in full accordance with the law, and our offices will continue to perform the critical casework to ensure detainees are treated fairly.”
The oversight authority alone won’t enable members of Congress to stop the abuses that ICE commits in Aurora. Crow helped establish the authority at a time when immigration advocates were most concerned about health conditions, not cancellation of basic rights. No facility walk-through can remedy the profound injustices at work there.
But at a time when Democrats seem overwhelmed and impotent as the Trump administration dismantles constitutional order, every available counterweight should be applied with maximum force.
Quentin Young is the editor of Colorado Newsline. This commentary is republished from Colorado Newsline under a Creative Commons license. Colorado Newsline is part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization.
