An ICE Detention Center Roils a Colorado Town and Jolts a House Race

After the Pledge of Allegiance and a discussion of food truck regulations, the town councilors in tiny Hudson, Colo., reached the hard part of their weekly meeting: getting yelled at by dozens of protesters furious about an immigration detention center set to open in an empty prison on the edge of town.

“You’re Nazis!” several members of the crowd shouted, waving anti-ICE posters. “Shame! Shame!”

The protesters had driven in from blue cities along Colorado’s Front Range to fill the town hall in Hudson, a town of 1,600 with one stop light and no grocery store that sits in a sea of farmland and oil-and-gas operations in Northern Colorado. It is just a 45-minute drive from Denver but in a different political universe, where residents voted overwhelmingly for President Trump.

Until recently, Hudson was mostly known as a speed trap, but the arrival of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility has now plunged the town into one of the country’s most divisive debates and jolted the re-election campaign of one of the most vulnerable Republicans in Congress.

The detention center will sit along the border of Colorado’s Eighth Congressional District, a heavily Latino district served by Representative Gabe Evans, a Trump stalwart who ousted a Democrat two years ago.

Now, Democrats are hoping they can capitalize on growing anger over the high cost of living and Mr. Trump’s deportation campaign to retake the district and reclaim control of Congress.

Mr. Evans has expressed support for immigration detention centers, while his Democratic challenger, Manny Rutinel, a progressive state lawmaker, is campaigning on a pledge to “stop ICE from terrorizing our communities.”

When it opens, as early as next month, the Big Horn detention center in Hudson could vastly expand immigration enforcement in a corner of Colorado where immigrants from across the world work in meatpacking plants and fields. It would nearly double Colorado’s immigrant detention capacity, and opponents say it would sow fear across the plains.

Diana and Ernesto Cruz, who live in nearby Fort Lupton, Colo., voted Republican in 2024 after being fed up with inflation and scenes of chaos along the southern border under former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. But they said Mr. Trump’s immigration crackdown had gone too far, and they did not want an ICE detention center down the road. They are planning to vote for Mr. Rutinel in November.

“There are more important things,” Mr. Cruz said on Wednesday, as he parked his big-rig truck outside the couple’s American flag-draped home.

Late last year, protesters rallied outside Mr. Evans’s district office in Greeley, Colo., to urge him not to support the detention center. A spokeswoman for Mr. Evans declined a request to discuss the issue.

Conservatives in Mr. Evans’s district said they welcomed the prospect of more immigration enforcement in Colorado, a Democratic-led state that the Trump administration has attacked for its sanctuary policies. They’ve also argued that the detention center would create jobs and revive a prison that has sat empty for more than a decade.

“It’s just sitting there,” said Denise Geddes, a nurse’s aide in Fort Lupton who described herself as “big time MAGA.” Unauthorized immigrants, she said, are “taking over the system.”

“We’re going to scoop your butt up,” she continued.

The GEO Group, one of the country’s largest private prison companies, has a $529 million contract to run the facility and is already advertising for security officers, starting at $35 an hour, and other support staff. On Wednesday, a few pickup trucks came and went from the property, but there was no sign that any detainees had arrived. Neither the GEO Group nor ICE responded to requests for comment.

Hudson’s leaders insist they are powerless to stop the center. Bryce Lange, the town manager, said the prison had been approved by town voters years ago and that it still had a certificate of occupancy, even though it has sat empty for more than a decade.

“We’re very limited in our abilities to do anything,” Mr. Lange said. “It’s already built.”

The prison building is owned by Highlands REIT, a Chicago-based real-estate investment trust, which did not respond to requests for comment.

The town’s inaction has only fueled protesters’ frustration. Opponents of the prison sued Hudson last month, arguing the building site is not zoned for an immigration detention center. The suit says the facility could strain Hudson’s water systems, roads and emergency services by housing as many as 1,200 detainees in a remote facility 12 miles from the nearest hospital.

“The town has thrown up its hands and claimed it does not have the authority to act — that is a lie,” said David Seligman, executive director of the progressive legal nonprofit Towards Justice, which sued Hudson on behalf of a faith group and a neighbor near the facility.

Dozens of protesters regularly flock to Hudson to march through the streets and demonstrate in the dusty field outside town hall. Thousands of people have deluged the town with angry written comments.

“It’s against every fiber of my being,” said Barbara Mills-Bria, a retired engineer who drove from suburban Denver to Hudson with two friends to attend a raucous council meeting on Wednesday.

A brblock band strutted through a quiet neighborhood as organizers handed out leaflets opposing the detention center, prompting pickup trucks stuck behind the procession to honk in frustration. Chesney Baldwin, a college student who lives in Hudson, was puzzled as he watched the marchers go by.

“Everyone here likes ICE,” he said. “This isn’t Denver.”

Some residents and town leaders are tired of the scrutiny and say their normally staid town meetings have been hijacked by outsiders. Five police officers were searching bags and providing security at a council meeting on Wednesday as dozens of demonstrators waited to make statements opposing the detention center.

“These people don’t pay taxes here,” Tracy Trevarton, a Hudson resident, said, as she stood in the entryway to town hall. “We can’t even get in here and conduct our own business. It’s tearing our town apart.”

Protesters, in turn, have accused Hudson of trying to stifle open debate by limiting public comments. The meeting this week grew so heated that the mayor abruptly adjourned it, prompting even more outrage.

Kerry Shaklee, a longtime resident and member of Hudson’s planning commission, walked away shaking his head. He said he opposed the detention center, which he characterized as a “travesty.” But he also felt for the besieged town government.

“They’ve been through the wringer,” he said. “I ran for council. Thank God I lost. I didn’t need to sit through all of this.”