Aurora Police Chief Todd Chamberlain wants everyone to know that his agency didn’t “decline” to help Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers late Tuesday when the power went out at a privately-run detention facility allowing two people in custody to escape out a back door.
It’s just that ICE took more than four hours to call them about the escape from the facility, run by a company called GEO.
“The Aurora Police Department is ready and willing to help our federal partners, including those working at the ICE GEO facility,” Chamberlain said in a lengthy, strongly worded statement to reporters on Thursday. “In order for us to effectively respond to and assist … with calls for service, we need to receive timely and accurate information. That unfortunately did not happen.”
Police say at around 10 p.m. Tuesday two detainees escaped the immigration detention facility by walking out a door unlocked due to a power outage caused by high winds.
In announcing the escapes, ICE told reporters late Wednesday they were on their own in dealing with the situation.
“Two detainees escaped March 18 from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Denver Contract Detention Facility, in Aurora, Colorado,” the ICE statement said. “Local authorities were notified immediately and declined to assist with the search. ICE also notified additional state and federal law enforcement partners. The aliens are still at large and the search is ongoing.”
The latest salvo on Thursday is just another example of the ongoing tension between local police and federal immigration officers – the latter of whom have, since President Trump’s Inauguration, customarily blamed local authorities for the reason the immigration enforcement actions have been less successful in Colorado than other states.
“The Aurora Police Department is dedicated to serving and protecting the city of Aurora community,” Chamberlain said. “The ICE GEO facility is a holding center for people who come from all over the state of Colorado, not specifically from Aurora, and there is nothing to indicate at this time the escapees have any ties to our city. The city of Aurora did not create this situation.”
Federal officials named Geilond Vido-Romero and Joel Jose Gonzalez-Gonzalez as the men who walked out that back door.
Gonzalez-Gonzalez, 32, has a short criminal history in Colorado, starting with an arrest on Jan. 8 in Brighton for felony motor vehicle theft and felony drug charges. He was ultimately charged only with misdemeanor fraud for possessing a credit card device. He has a court date next month.
A month later, on Feb. 9, he was arrested again, this time by the Adams County Sheriff’s Office for felony motor vehicle theft. Court records show that the case was closed, “no charges filed.”
ICE said Gonzalez-Gonzalez entered the U.S. in 2013 in El Paso, Texas, and violated the terms of his admission. State arrest records label him as Mexican.
Vido-Romero, 24, has no pending state court cases in Colorado, but ICE said he was arrested in Castle Rock and picked up by ICE from the Douglas County jail in late February. It is unknown why Douglas County held him. He entered the U.S. in Dec. 2023 in Texas and is originally from Venezuela. He was ordered by an immigration judge to be sent back to that country on Feb. 18, according to ICE.
Chamberlain said on Thursday that APD has a memorandum of understanding with ICE GEO that says when the police respond to a “hot” escape situation, they’ll send officers and designate a perimeter around the vicinity of the GEO facility.
A “hot” escape is defined as one that has just occurred in the last 15 minutes and has been immediately reported to the police. In that situation, APD has the authority to detain an escapee, who would be returned to federal custody, unless there was suspicion that the detainee also committed a felony in the course of an escape.
Being unlawfully present in the U.S. is typically a civil infraction, not a crime. But federal law allows for a misdemeanor criminal charge to be filed if an immigrant escapes from detention. In 2019, misdemeanors were filed against three men who escaped from the same GEO facility, but they were ultimately sentenced to the time they had already served, and fined $25, then presumably deported.
The memorandum between APD and ICE also spells out that a “cold” escape is defined as one discovered during a head count that is more than 15 minutes old. Because ICE waited to notify APD about the escape in quick time, the call for service was automatically a “cold” escape and was prioritized accordingly with all of the other calls for service that overnight.
APD said that on Tuesday at 9:30 p.m. the power went out at the ICE GEO facility, causing doors of at least one exit to unlock. The officials then embarked on an “emergency” head count, APD said.
ICE believes the two men escaped at around 10 p.m. At about 12:30 a.m., ICE confirmed two men were missing after the emergency head count was completed.
At around 2:30 a.m., approximately five hours after the facility lost power, APD says they received a 911 call from ICE alerting them of a possible escape and a request for APD’s help. APD determined the timeline didn’t meet the definition of a “hot” escape and it was placed in a queue.
At 5:15 a.m., APD officers arrived at the GEO detention center to help and to take a report.
The men are still at large.
