U.S. Rep. Jason Crow is joined by Democratic members of Congress from metro Denver: Diana DeGette, Joe Neguse, and Brittany Pettersen. Front Porch photo by Linda Kotsaftis

U.S. Rep. Jason Crow led a scheduled oversight visit to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Aurora today, which he said led to “many, many more questions.”

Crow (D-Aurora) was joined by three other Democratic members of Congress from metro Denver: Diana DeGette, Joe Neguse, and Brittany Pettersen. Following the visit to the ICE facility, operated by contractor GEO Group Inc., the four met with media at a nearby RTD parking lot.

“I can personally say after my 10th visit, this has been the most difficult visit in terms of getting information, getting answers out of the facility, out of the employees, and being obstructed from conducting oversight that I’ve had in over six years, which is unacceptable,” Crow said. “We won’t stand for it, because transparency and oversight matter a lot, and we will not bow down from our constitutional obligation to do that duty,”

DeGette (D-Denver) said the seven days’ notice required for the visit made things difficult. The entire population was on lockdown, she said, and the people who were conducting the visit “had little knowledge to tell us when we asked questions. Now we’re going to have to follow up, and we will follow up and ask our questions about what we saw and what’s going on in this facility.”

DeGette added: “I’ve been in a lot of correctional facilities in my life, and if you have seven days’ notice, they clean up pretty good.”

The Congress members did speak with one detainee and visited the health care facility, but were told they could not be given a specific head count of how many people are in the facility, even after seeing the number 1,200 written on a board in the intake area. They said they were told that any information requests would need to be funneled through the ICE main office in Washington, D.C.

Patterson added that people are put into different categories inside the facility, medium to high risk, which sometimes involves a criminal history, but the staff couldn’t tell them the percentage of people in each area.

They also said they have questions about legal resources available and about what happens if someone decides to self deport. DeGette said briefings by legal groups have stopped and there’s a lack of access to legal information.

DeGette was able to see Jeanette Vizguerra, one of her constituents. The longtime Denver immigrant rights advocate was taken into custody at the facility on March 17th and her arrest has been the focus of protests in recent months. DeGette has filed a private bill in Congress, seeking to release Vizsguerra and allow her to stay in the country while her immigration case proceeds.

“I wanted to hand deliver a copy of that bill to Jeanette today. I did that. She was grateful for that, and she told me she is not going to stop fighting for immigrants’ rights, and so, we’re going to keep up our oversight here,” DeGette said.

She said ICE now requires an advance signed privacy release if a Congress member wants to talk to one of their constituents in the facility.

Both Crow and Neguse have previously attempted unannounced visits to the ICE facility and were denied access. They have joined a lawsuit with other lawmakers across the country suing the Trump administration, saying it’s a violation of federal law granting members of Congress the right to conduct unannounced oversight visits of federal immigration detention facilities.

“The law in this instance is very clear that members of Congress have the legal right to conduct congressional oversight and do unannounced oversight,” Crow said.

Neguse added, “There’s certainly a lot that we intend to follow up on in the days and weeks ahead. But what I would just simply say that, above all else, transparency matters, oversight matters, accountability matters.”

GEO officials at the Aurora facility referred Front Porch to ICE for a comment about the visit today. ICE did not immediately respond to an inquiry.