Cheers rang throughout Glenwood Springs City Hall on Tuesday evening after city officials overwhelmingly decided it’s time for a local immigration detention facility to account for accusations of violating detainee hold times and additional building permit requirements.
Before a packed house of handheld signs saying things like “melt ICE” and “revoke,” the Glenwood Springs Planning and Zoning Commission (P&Z), which hasn’t held a revocation hearing in over 10 years, voted 5-1 to remove a special use permit for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency’s temporary holding facility and office at the Midland Business Center.
“The facility at 100 Midland Avenue is a jail. It’s in a commercial plaza and it’s holding people there against their will,” Glenwood Springs resident Hannah Saggau said during public comment. She added, “It’s an inhospitable room, it’s cold, it has concrete benches, it doesn’t have beds, people aren’t meant to stay there long.”
In 2003, P&Z originally granted a special use permit to the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), acting on behalf of ICE, to operate a short-term holding facility and office in the Midland Business Center. The special use permit was required since the detention facility was originally established in a General Commercial District, city documents show. The building itself, owned by a Florida-based company called JG Housing Solutions LLC, leases the space to ICE.
Many Roaring Fork Valley and Western Slope residents argue that the detention center should not be in a commercial zone.
“Holding people in cuffs is not the same as selling kayaks and cannabis,” said public commenter Jacob Richards, who was born in Glenwood Springs but now lives in Grand Junction.
Meanwhile, a recent spate of local complaints and public records requests made in response to a federal crackdown on immigration revealed that the ICE facility possibly violated permit terms by meeting or exceeding the 12-hour hold limitation for detainees on 11 separate occasions. Meanwhile, public records requests also prompted the City to determine that the property never received a full certificate of occupancy because “it was likely an oversight,” city documents state.
In February, a City inspection of the detention facility identified various building inadequacies. Among those noted, fire sprinkler heads were outdated, emergency evacuation procedures had yet to be provided or were unavailable at the time, and non-functioning exit and emergency lighting had to be updated and replaced. By March, the city issued a notice of violation to the GSA, including DHS and ICE.
Despite the numerous violations, City staff last week recommended that P&Z uphold the special use permit for the Glenwood ICE detention facility in the hopes that “the applicant take[s] corrective measures to address the violation,” city documents state.
City Attorney Karl Hanlon also emphasized on Tuesday various ways the federal government might not comply with the permit revocation. One, he said that DHS issued a new memo saying it’s now acceptable to hold detainees for 72 hours as opposed to 12. Two, the federal government can deploy what’s called the “Supremacy Clause,” which essentially allows them to supersede local laws.
“Essentially meaning that they can ignore us,” Hanlon said of the federal government. “I don’t want anybody’s expectations to be that this facility will cease to operate tomorrow depending on what you do tonight, or that we have a judicial remedy to force that to occur.
Hanlon also said he would more than likely be “bounced out of federal court relatively quickly” if he tried enforcing this effort “based on the case laws that exist today.”
“You have more than enough evidence to revoke,” he told the commission. “But what I do not want is for anybody to be confused about the outcome of you taking that action. It’s incredibly important for us as a community to make that statement.”
Commissioners spent hours on Tuesday evening hearing several public comments opposing the Glenwood Springs ICE facility, as well as attempting to ascertain every physical detail they could about the building itself. They asked Economic and Community Development Director Trent Hyatt, who’s personally toured the holding facility, about whether the building has adequate escape routes and fire sprinkler systems, if detainees have adequate seating, the size of the holding cells, if ICE agents have been keeping detainee meal logs and more.
According to Hyatt, ICE has still yet to respond to the City’s notice of violation. Meanwhile, no ICE representatives or property owners attended Tuesday’s meeting to answer commissioner questions.
Before voting in favor of the permit revocation, P&Z chair Peter Waller commented on the DHS memo that extends 12-hour stays to 72 for immigration detainees.
“Holy moly, you throw 72 hours and not having a bed or all these other type[s] of amenities? It’s very, very difficult for me,” he said. “And not being able to talk to the applicant to hear their comments on that? that’s something I struggle with.”