By Joelle Webb | The Center Square
(The Center Square) – A Trump-appointed federal judge has ruled in favor of a private prison company in its legal battle against a new Colorado law requiring more health and safety inspections for immigration detention facilities.
The lawsuit, brought in June to the U.S. District Court in Denver, was initiated by the GEO Group. The private for-profit prison company alleged that a new Colorado law that went into effect this month conflicts with its contract with the federal government.
The law is House Bill 26-1276, which requires an increase of inspections for federal immigration detention facilities in the state. Though there are plans to build more immigration detention facilities in the state, there is currently only one, and it sits in Adams County in the Denver area. The state has been concerned about the facility, where a tuberculosis outbreak occurred in June.
GEO attorney Fred Yarger argued in court that because it’s the only immigration detention facility in the state, the bill was the Legislature’s attempt to “directly and specifically regulate, through targeted legislation, a single facility in the state.”
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