Amid a raucous meeting that attracted a group of vocal immigrant rights advocates to city hall, Aurora City Council voted Monday to require that all detention facilities in Aurora notify the fire department in the event of a contagious disease outbreak.
The ordinance comes months after officials at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Aurora quarantined more than 100 detainees following the discovery of mumps and chickenpox among those being held there — the latest in a string of outbreaks at the center.
“Recent contagious disease outbreaks at a local detention facility could potentially put first responders at risk,” city staff told council members in a memo attached to Monday night’s council packet. “This item attempts to mitigate some of that risk by requiring notification of disease outbreaks and other health hazards.”
U.S. Rep. Jason Crow, who represents Aurora in Congress and has been a vocal critic of conditions inside the ICE facility, issued a statement Tuesday saying that “Aurora residents deserve to know that ICE is operating in good faith in our community.”
“Keeping the Fire Department abreast of communicable diseases is an important step in that process and ensures our first responders are adequately prepared to deal with any public health issues in the community,” he said.
About three dozen protesters demonstrated on the west steps of the building, and then proceeded to the City Council meeting, where they spent more than an hour scolding the city’s elected leaders for not doing enough to resist the work of federal immigration officials.
Protesters demanded that Aurora become a sanctuary city and refrain from helping ICE agents capture or detain people who are in the country illegally. They also urged the city to take disciplinary action against police officers involved in the Aug. 24 death of Elijah McClain, an unarmed black man who died days after what his family characterized as a violent arrest by Aurora police.
After breaking out in a group chant, the group was escorted out of the council chambers by police.
The Abolish ICE protest that disrupted the City Council meeting last night was not a show of force but a show of ignorance by those who think that immigration policies are made at the local level and not in Washington, D.C.
— MikeforAuroraMayor (@MikeforAurora) October 8, 2019
Former U.S. Rep. Mike Coffman, who is running for mayor of Aurora, said Tuesday morning in a tweet that the protest “was not a show of force but a show of ignorance by those who think that immigration policies are made at the local level and not in Washington, D.C.”
Mayoral candidate Ryan Frazier also condemned the disruption at the council meeting. In a tweet posted Tuesday morning, Frazier said people should be free to have their voices heard “but shutting down a council meeting is a step too far.”
