The US military is allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) to process and detain arrested undocumented immigrants at Buckley space force base in Colorado, according to multiple reports and a statement by the US Northern Command on Tuesday.
A spokesperson for the US Northern Command said in a statement shared by CBS News on Tuesday that, at the request of the Department of Homeland Security, facilities at Buckley space force base in Aurora, Colorado, had been made available to Ice officials for immigration operations starting on Monday 27 January.
The facilities are being provided to “enable US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) to stage and process criminal aliens within the US for an operation taking place in Colorado”, according to the statement.
No military personnel will be involved in the operation, the statement reads, adding that the facility will be staffed by “ICE senior leaders, special agents, and analysts as well as members of DHS components and other federal law enforcement agencies”.
The spokesperson noted that Ice’s facility requirements include a temporary operations center, staging area and a temporary holding location for the receiving, holding and processing of undocumented immigrants.
Representative Jason Crow, a Democrat of Colorado, released a statement on Wednesday morning, saying that he was “deeply concerned” about the reports that Buckley space force base, which is in his district, is being used for mass deportation efforts.
“Pulling our military into politicized and contentious domestic immigration enforcement dishonors the service of our troops and distracts them from the important work of defending our nation,” Crow said.
“Perhaps most disturbingly, it could force out servicemembers to assist in the detention and deportation of peaceful members of the community.”
The Buckley space force base is located in Aurora, Colorado, a city of about 340,000 people near Denver. Last year, the city made headlines during the presidential campaign, when Donald Trump and others alleged that Venezuelan gang members had taken over apartment building complexes in the city after a video circulated online showing armed men walking through an apartment building housing Venezuelan immigrants.
At the time, Aurora’s Republican mayor, Mike Coffman, described the claims that the city had been overrun by criminal or gang activity as “dramatically exaggerated”, saying that it “couldn’t be further from the truth”.
On Tuesday, the Denver metro area in Colorado is expected to be one of the next targets for Ice arrests, according to CBS News, and NBC also reported on Tuesday that Ice agents might carry out an operation in Aurora as soon as Thursday morning.
The decision to utilize a Colorado military base for immigration operations comes as last week the Pentagon announced that it would deploy up to 1,500 active-duty troops to the US-Mexico border as part of Trump’s aggressive new immigration enforcement strategy.
On Friday, about 150 soldiers from two units at Fort Carson in Colorado were reportedly deployed to the southern border.
