A Trump-appointed federal judge temporarily struck down key provisions of a Colorado law that singled out the state's only ICE detention center for unannounced inspections and steep fines, a ruling that undercuts Democratic officials' bid to regulate a federal immigration facility out of existence.
Chief U.S. District Judge Daniel Domenico issued a preliminary injunction Thursday blocking the enforcement provisions of Colorado House Bill 26-1276, the state law that Democratic Gov. Jared Polis signed on June 4. The law required quarterly unannounced inspections of the GEO Group's Aurora ICE Processing Center and authorized civil penalties of up to $50,000 for each refusal to let inspectors through the door, with GEO footing the bill for every visit.
Domenico found that the law targeted one company operating one facility under one federal contract, and that the Constitution does not permit a state to single out a private contractor doing the federal government's work. His order blocks the inspection mandate and the penalty scheme until October 15, when GEO's existing contract to run the Aurora site expires.
The judge's written order laid out a straightforward supremacy-clause argument. Federal operations, including those carried out by private contractors on behalf of agencies like ICE, generally must remain free from state regulation. Colorado's law, Domenico found, failed that test on its face.
Fox News Digital reported that Domenico wrote bluntly about the law's narrow aim:
"Here, GEO has shown that it is singled out for a special bill that applies to no other facility."
Colorado argued that HB 26-1276 merely brought GEO into compliance with regulations already applied to other detention facilities in the state. Domenico rejected that framing. He noted that the unannounced-inspection requirement "does not appear elsewhere" in Colorado law, and that the state itself acknowledged the penalty scheme was not imposed on any other facility.
In his order, the judge addressed Colorado's defense directly:
"And though Colorado argues that the law only brings GEO into compliance with existing state regulations applied to other detention facilities, that law singles out this one category of facility for a separately defined set of restrictions and rulemaking."
He concluded that the distinction was enough to establish discrimination against GEO based on its status as a federal contractor, a legal line states cannot cross under the supremacy clause and Supreme Court precedent.
GEO's Aurora center is the only ICE detention facility in Colorado. As of May, it was the only facility in the state subject to HB 26-1276's additional regulations. The math was not complicated: Colorado wrote a law whose entire regulatory burden fell on a single private operator running a single federal immigration facility.
The blocked provisions were the law's sharpest teeth. Quarterly unannounced inspections, paid for by the operator, gave state officials a standing invitation to walk into a federal immigration facility on their own schedule. The $50,000-per-refusal penalty ensured compliance was not optional. Strip those provisions out, and what remains is a framework waiting on future rulemaking that Colorado said it had no immediate plans to begin.
Domenico left untouched the law's provisions on reporting requirements, staffing levels, housing of minors, and onsite medical and mental health professionals. But those sections carried no present force. Colorado told the court they were not being enforced and would require a rulemaking process the state had not started. The judge saw no reason to block rules that existed only on paper.
Democratic Attorney General Phil Weiser framed the ruling as a limited setback. In a statement Thursday, Weiser characterized the injunction as affecting only one provision and leaving Colorado's broader public-health authority intact.
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."
But Weiser did not stop there. He disclosed that his office had filed a separate lawsuit against GEO the day before, on Wednesday, seeking to force the company to cooperate with a state investigation into tuberculosis at the Aurora facility. Health officials confirmed an active TB case at the center on June 22.
Weiser added:
"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 the records and cooperation needed to determine how far the TB exposure may have spread. The scope of that exposure remains unknown publicly. The TB lawsuit is a separate proceeding from the HB 26-1276 challenge and was not part of Domenico's Thursday ruling.
Domenico's injunction carries a built-in sunset. It expires October 15, the same day GEO's existing federal contract to operate the Aurora facility runs out. That timeline means the legal battle over HB 26-1276's inspection provisions may never reach a full trial. If GEO stops running the facility, the law loses its only target.
Fox News Digital reached out to GEO and to Gov. Polis's office for comment. Neither response was included in the reporting.
The ruling leaves several questions unanswered. The full case name and docket number for the injunction proceeding were not publicly identified in available reporting. The specific Supreme Court precedents Domenico relied on were referenced but not named. And the status of the tuberculosis investigation, including how many individuals may have been exposed, remains unclear.
What Domenico's ruling exposes is a familiar playbook. When a blue state cannot shut down a federal immigration operation directly, it layers on state regulations so burdensome that the operation becomes untenable. Quarterly surprise inspections billed to the operator. Fifty-thousand-dollar fines for noncompliance. A penalty scheme applied to no other facility in the state. The goal is not oversight. The goal is obstruction dressed in the language of public safety.
Polis signed the law. Weiser defended it. And a federal judge looked at the text, looked at the Constitution, and found that Colorado had done exactly what the supremacy clause forbids: targeted a private company for the offense of carrying out federal policy.
Weiser can call the injunction narrow. He can pivot to a tuberculosis lawsuit filed the day before the ruling came down. But the core finding stands: Colorado wrote a law that applied to one facility, operated by one company, under one federal contract, and the judge saw through it.
When a state has to write a law that targets a single building, the law is not about standards. It is about politics.
