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Contact:
Gina McAfee
Colorado Immigrant Partnership Teams
303-963-6749
[email protected]
Gunbarrel Residents and Advocates Call for Action from Local Elected Officials
Saturday Protest Targeted BI Inc.’s Immigration Monitoring Work
GUNBARREL, Colo., February 28, 2026 — About 150 community members and immigrant rights advocates gathered Saturday outside BI Inc.’s headquarters at 6265 Gunbarrel Ave., calling for elected officials and public agencies to cut ties with the company and related private prison interests.
The demonstration was organized by the Immigrant Partnership Teams, Southeast Boulder County Indivisible, American Friends Service Committee and Boulder Democratic Socialists of America.
BI Inc., headquartered in Gunbarrel, holds major contracts with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to provide electronic monitoring and related services used in immigration enforcement. The company’s work includes supervising individuals through tracking technology as part of federal programs. BI Inc. is owned by GEO Group, a for-profit prison corporation.
Organizers say many Boulder County residents are unaware that a company so deeply involved in federal immigration enforcement operates in their community.
“As a resident of Gunbarrel for the past 27 years, I am appalled that a company which profits from the inhumane treatment of immigrants is in our ‘backyard’,” said Kristen Aldretti, co-lead of the Boulder County Immigrant Partnership Team. “The expansion of immigrant surveillance represents a troubling trend. The fact that a company making billions through its ICE contracts is based in Boulder County contradicts the very values I believe our community upholds.”
Advocates describe ankle monitoring programs as harmful to immigrants navigating legal proceedings, saying participants have reported pain, shame, and barriers to work and housing. Organizers argue that community-based services without compulsory surveillance would be more humane and cost-effective.
“The goal is to make sure people in Boulder County understand what is happening in their own community,” said Gina McAfee of the Immigrant Partnership Teams. “Public institutions should not be connected to programs that rely on surveillance rather than support.”
In addition to electronic tracking, BI Inc. provides “skip tracing” services, which involve searching through large amounts of personal information (addresses, phone numbers, workplace details, family connections, and online activity) to track where a missing person may be. Advocates warn that BI’s $121 million contract with ICE to offer these services can subject entire families and communities to intrusive surveillance, often without a warrant, sweeping up sensitive information about people who have done nothing wrong and threatening privacy, undermining due process, and eroding basic constitutional protections.
“BI calls their program ‘alternatives to detention’, but the alternative to detention is freedom,” said Elias Lindgren with Boulder DSA. “These giant corporations are making a fortune supporting an expanding and increasingly unaccountable secret police and its inhumane and unjust treatment of the most vulnerable people in our communities.”
During the demonstration, speakers outlined specific demands for elected officials who represent Gunbarrel at the federal, state, county, and even school district levels.
“We plan to send our demands to our elected representatives and to request meetings with each entity to discuss how we can work together to decouple our community from the lawless, unaccountable activity going on with ICE, and from these mega corporations that are profiting from a punitive, unjust, and racist system,” said Ann Suthard, SoBoCo Indivisible Organizer. “We expect that our elected officials will welcome this conversation, because it’s long past due that we as a community take action.”
The group outlined the following actions they are urging elected officials to take, and is sharing them publicly in this release.
Representative Joe Neguse, Senator John Hickenlooper, and Senator Michael Bennet:
Support the revocation of all funding from ICE for immigration detention and Alternatives to Detention, and use the money to invest in far less costly community-based and non-profit run programs to help the community. Join the Shut Down GEO coalition and commit to shutting down the Aurora-based GEO Group-funded facility as soon as possible.
State Representative Kyle Brown and State Senator Judy Amabile:
Review the State Department of Corrections contract with BI and institute strictdata-sharing protections. Cancel the contract with BI at the earliest possible date.
Boulder County Commissioners Marta Loachamin, Claire Levy, and Ashley Stolzmann:
Review the existing BI contract (through the Community Justice Department), and institute strict data-sharing protections. Cancel the contract at the earliest possible date.
Boulder County Sheriff and City of Boulder, Superior, Louisville, Longmont, and Lafayette PDs:
Reinforce at all levels the necessity of strict adherence to state law prohibiting Colorado law enforcement officers and agencies from collaborating with federal agencies on civil immigration matters. Specifically, reaffirm across all agencies and staff that local police cannot: hold individuals in jail beyond their scheduled release date solely on a civil immigration detainer request from ICE enter into or renew any contract with ICE to detain individuals for immigration violations share non-public PPI with federal immigration authorities without a judicial warrant
Boulder, Superior, Louisville, Longmont, and Lafayette City Councils:
Adopt resolutions to not contract with any private company that currently holds contracts with ICE or CBP.
Boulder Valley School District:
GEO Group has been a corporate sponsor of at least one school in BVSD (Heatherwood, where GEO Group’s logo was included in school shirts worn by students). For the safety and well-being of all BVSD students, BVSD must develop a binding policy to no longer accept funding from private for-profit prison corporations. Ensure that each school in the district is up to date with and understands protocols related to refusing to allow federal agents on school property (per the requirements of SB 25-276).
Gunbarrel, and all elected officials in Boulder County, must not be like the residents of Ohrdruf, Germany, in the 1940s, who knew that a concentration camp was in operation right outside their city, but turned a blind eye to it and to its humanity-destroying operations.
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