Federal Immigration Lockup Expanding In Aurora

A private prison contractor is expected to start expanding an immigration detention center in the Denver area by the end of this year.The South Florida Business Journal is reporting that GEO Group, a private prison firm which runs a federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Aurora, will be expanding its lockup by 1,100 beds.

Construction is set to start at the end of 2007, and finish by 2009. The company has reportedly stated that the expansion will cost $72 million and will generate an additional $30 million in annual revenue.

In July, the federal Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report that found sanitation and overcrowding problems with the Aurora facility.

Erin Rosa was born in Spain and raised in Colorado Springs. She is a freelance writer currently living in Denver. Rosa's work has been featured in a variety of news outlets including the Huffington Post, Democracy Now!, and the Rocky Mountain Chronicle, an alternative-weekly in Northern Colorado where she worked as a columnist covering the state legislature. Rosa has received awards from the Society of Professional Journalists for her reporting on lobbying and woman's health issues. She was also tapped with a rare honorable mention award by the Newspaper Guild-CWA's David S. Barr Award in 2008--only the second such honor conferred in its nine-year history--for her investigative series covering the federal government's Supermax prison in the state. Rosa covers the labor community, corrections, immigration and government transparency matters. She can be reached at erosa@www.coloradoindependent.com.