A Trump-appointed federal judge temporarily blocked key provisions of a Colorado law that singled out the state's only ICE detention facility for special oversight requirements, ruling the state likely crossed a constitutional line.
Chief U.S. District Judge Daniel Domenico issued a preliminary injunction Thursday halting enforcement of Colorado House Bill 26-1276's unannounced inspection mandate and its civil penalty scheme, which authorized fines of up to $50,000 each time the GEO Group refused to open its Aurora ICE Processing Center to state inspectors. Democratic Gov. Jared Polis signed the bill into law on June 4.
Domenico found the law discriminates against GEO Group because of its role as a federal contractor. The Constitution's supremacy clause, he wrote, shields federal operations, and the private contractors who carry them out, from state regulation that targets them specifically. Colorado's law applied to one facility in the entire state: the Aurora center, the only ICE detention site in Colorado.
The judge's written order left little room for ambiguity. Colorado had argued the law merely brought GEO into compliance with existing state regulations that already applied to other detention facilities. Domenico rejected that framing directly.
As Fox News Digital reported, the judge wrote:
"Here, GEO has shown that it is singled out for a special bill that applies to no other facility."
He continued:
"That other facilities might have some similar regulatory burdens does not change the fact that none of them are required to comply with HB 1276. As GEO notes, the extent of the additional burden is irrelevant for purposes of this test."
Domenico pointed to specific provisions that had no parallel elsewhere in Colorado law. The requirement that the state conduct a set number of unannounced inspections, he noted, "does not appear elsewhere." And Colorado itself acknowledged that the penalty scheme, fines of up to $50,000 per refusal, was not imposed on any other facility in the state.
That combination, he concluded, "is sufficient to establish that HB 1276 discriminates against GEO based on its status as a federal contractor."
The ruling did not strike down the entire law. Domenico blocked only the unannounced inspection provisions and the civil penalty scheme attached to them. Other sections of HB 26-1276, covering reporting requirements, staffing levels, onsite medical and mental health professionals, housing of minors, and conditions for detainees with chronic health conditions, remain on the books.
Those provisions survived not because the judge found them constitutional, but because Colorado told the court it was not enforcing them. The state said those sections would require future rulemaking, and it had no immediate plans to begin that process. With no enforcement threat, the judge saw no need to block them.
The preliminary injunction carries a built-in expiration date: October 15, when GEO Group's existing federal contract to operate the Aurora facility runs out. Whether the contract will be renewed, and what happens to the injunction if it is, remains unclear.
Democratic Attorney General Phil Weiser moved quickly to frame the decision as a limited setback. In a statement Thursday, Weiser said:
"Today's ruling granted the GEO Group a narrow, temporary injunction against one provision of a new 2026 law, not the broad relief it sought, and leaves Colorado's existing public health and safety authority intact."
Weiser also pointed to a separate legal action his office filed the day before. On Wednesday, Colorado sued GEO Group to enforce a public health order tied to a tuberculosis investigation at the Aurora center. State health officials confirmed an active TB case at the facility on June 22.
Weiser said in his statement:
"Separately, our lawsuit filed yesterday seeks to enforce that existing authority and require GEO to cooperate with the state's investigation into tuberculosis at the Aurora facility, and we will continue using every available tool to protect the health and safety of Coloradans."
The state alleges GEO has failed to provide records and cooperation needed to determine how many people may have been exposed. The scope of the potential exposure remains unknown. GEO Group did not respond to a request for comment, nor did Gov. Polis's office.
The timeline tells its own story. Colorado passed a law in June that imposed a new oversight regime on a single facility, the Aurora ICE Processing Center, operated by a single private contractor under a federal contract. The law required quarterly unannounced inspections, forced GEO to pay for them, and threatened $50,000 fines for noncompliance. No other detention facility in the state faced those requirements.
A federal judge looked at that structure and concluded it was not general regulation. It was a law aimed at one company doing one job for the federal government. The supremacy clause exists precisely to prevent states from using their regulatory power to interfere with federal operations, and Supreme Court precedent extends that protection to private contractors carrying out those operations.
Colorado may frame this as a public health and safety matter. Weiser's tuberculosis lawsuit, filed the day before the injunction ruling, underscores that the state has legitimate concerns about conditions inside the Aurora facility. But legitimate concerns do not entitle a state to write a law that singles out one federally contracted facility for a regulatory framework applied to no one else.
Domenico drew that line clearly. Colorado crafted a bill that applied to exactly one facility, imposed burdens found nowhere else in state law, and targeted a company specifically because it operates under a federal contract. The judge did not need to look further than the bill's own text to find the problem.
States that want to regulate federal immigration enforcement through the back door should expect federal courts to notice, and to say no.
