Last week, the City Council of Glenwood Springs in Colorado voted 6 to 1 to take legal action against the owner of a building operated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They claim that the facility is being run in breach of the city’s land use code. The motion permits the city’s attorney, Karl Hanlon, to bring a lawsuit in state court against the property owner, JG Housing Solutions, LLC, a Florida-based company, as Rocky Mountain PBS reported. This vote follows months of pressure from the community and an investigation into ICE’s operations at an unmarked office in the area.
ICE has had its operations based in the strip mall unit for over 20 years, with activities carried out under a special use permit granted in 2003. This permit allows tenants to detain people for a maximum of 12 hours. In April, the city’s voluntary Planning and Zoning Commission canceled that permit, and the council’s current vote marks the first step in carrying out that cancellation.
The lawsuit states that the facility has continued to function as a detention center without having a valid permit. A community investigation, which was reported by the Colorado Sun, showed that ICE had detained people for longer than the 12-hour limit on more than one occasion. Records acquired by the Deportation Data Project were quoted as verifying the prolonged detentions. The Department of Homeland Security rejected the idea of any breaches in a statement given to the Sun. Neither ICE nor the landlord challenged the revocation of the permit in April or replied to the town’s questions, as Hanlon stated.
On July 24, the emergency medical responders who arrived at the site saw and verified that the building was being used as a place of detention. Hanlon and the council members stated that this constituted concrete evidence of a breach of zoning regulations. Mayor Pro Tem Erin Zalinski said the city had postponed taking action until it had something it could defend. The city is now looking for a court injunction which would prevent the landlord, as well as anyone else that the landlord leases to, from using the building for detention.
Why the City Is Suing the Landlord Instead of ICE
If the city took legal action directly against ICE, it would have to contest the federal government’s legal superiority over local laws. By taking on the landlord under local zoning ordinances, however, the case remains within an area where the city has greater authority. Hanlon referred to the situation as being in “uncharted territory” and the city as an underdog, saying that its chances of success were less than 25 percent.
The issue at stake is the extent to which a local government may apply its own zoning and land use regulations to a property that’s being used for federal immigration enforcement. Since the conflict between local ordinance authority and federal supremacy is still unresolved, Hanlon describes the result as uncertain, even though he thinks the city has a valid case.
What Will Happen If the City Wins the Case?
An injunction won’t automatically lead to the closure of the facility, since ICE might decide to ignore it, and some people doubted that the lawsuit would cause a more vigorous federal response in Glenwood Springs. Mayor Marco Dehm stated that if further ICE agents did turn up as a result, then the city would have made a mistake, although he hoped that wouldn’t occur.
Some questioned whether going to court might cause the council to lose the opportunity to negotiate better conditions for the people detained at the facility. Hanlon stated that he had not found ICE willing to negotiate better conditions for anybody. Those residents who spoke before the vote generally advised the council to make its decision on the law rather than on the possible response from federal authorities. At this moment, the future of the facility is still uncertain.