“The GEO Group is endangering Coloradans’ public health by refusing to follow the state health department’s order and by violating Colorado law,” Colorado Attorney Phil Weiser said. “
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser is suing the GEO Group over its alleged failure to comply with an investigation into a tuberculosis outbreak at an Aurora-area facility.
“The GEO Group contracts with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to run the Aurora detention facility, but it operates and controls the day-to-day activities of the site,” Weiser’s office said in a press release. “The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, or CDPHE, issued a public health order on August 13 after the GEO Group failed to produce medical information, potential contacts, and detainee discharge and transfer information for the state investigation of tuberculosis at the Aurora facility. The company had until August 17 to comply with the order.”
Weiser emphasized that GEO Group, a private prison operator that has repeatedly come under fire for living conditions at its facilities, is endangering residents across the state by its failure to cooperate.
“The GEO Group is endangering Coloradans’ public health by refusing to follow the state health department’s order and by violating Colorado law,” Weiser said. “This law keeps our residents safe and enables the health department to take necessary measures to prevent the spread of infectious diseases like tuberculosis. We will continue to defend Colorado law and ensure that no company flouts our public health and safety laws.”
The attorney general’s office notes that tuberculosis is highly contagious; though it can be treated effectively with antibiotics, it is often fatal without intervention.
“In fact,” Weiser said, “state law directs the state health department to ‘use every available means to investigate immediately and ascertain the existence of all reported or suspected cases of active tuberculosis within [its] jurisdiction, to determine the sources of such infections, and to identify and evaluate the contacts of such case and offer treatment as appropriate.”
Weiser’s press release states that, on June 25 of this year, the Adams County Health Department issued a public health order directed at the GEO Group after county officials confirmed a tuberculosis case at the Aurora facility. After the company failed to “fully respond,” the state launched its own investigation.
“Rather than comply,” Weiser’s office says, “the GEO Group instead directed CDPHE to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. At no time, however, did the GEO Group state that it did not have the requested information or that any federal agency had instructed it not to comply with the public health order.”
In mid-August, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said that the lawsuit was something of a last-ditch effort, filed only after health officials had already “exhausted all avenues to get the information necessary.”
“The State and public health officials simply want to conduct a routine public health investigation to protect the health of our fellow Coloradans,” Polis said, “and GEO’s consistent lack of transparency has kept that from happening.”
Sources
Colorado sues operator of Aurora immigrant detention center to enforce tuberculosis order
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