A nonprofit organization filed a lawsuit against the Town of Hudson Wednesday, challenging plans to reopen a former federal prison in the town as a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility.

Together Colorado, along with Janet E. Carlson, filed the case in Colorado District Court in Weld County, alleging the town is not “powerless to act” and that the proposed detention facility violates the town’s zoning laws.

“Under Colorado law, Hudson has not only the authority but the obligation and the duty to treat the proposed facility the way it would treat any other new facility proposed within the Town: by applying and enforcing its own Land Development Code,” the lawsuit says.

In addition to the Town of Hudson, the lawsuit names the Town Council, Planning Commission and Hudson Planning Director Jennifer Woods as defendants.

David Seligman, an attorney with Towards Justice, which brought the lawsuit, said during a news conference Thursday that Hudson town officials had “granted a special privilege” to The Geo Group and ICE in not requiring that they receive a conditional-use permit.

“Local governments, counties and cities are not helpless to act,” Seligman said.

Toward Justice is a Denver nonprofit labor rights organization. Seligman ran in the Democratic primary for attorney general, a race that Secretary of State Jena Griswold won.

About 50 people attended Thursday’s news conference, including clergy from several faith groups, many identifiable by clerical collars, prayer shawls and other religious attire. Those in the crowd wore T-shirts that said, “Unpaid peaceful protester,” “Extend mercy, show compassion, no exceptions” and “God’s work, our hands.”

Monsignor Jorge de los Santos, pastor of Our Lady Mother of the Church in Commerce City, was among those who spoke.

“Our faith moves us to defend what is not negotiable,” de los Santos said, adding, “We’re here to fight and to work for justice.”

“The lawsuit with the town of Hudson is about more than one town or one detention center,” Meghan Carrier, executive director of Together Colorado, added. “It is about whether cities across Colorado will have the moral fortitude to resist intimidation by the Trump administration and hold firm to exercising their authority to protect our neighbors.”

Together Colorado is a faith-based nonprofit organization with more than 200 congregations and faith leaders — including in Weld County — who are working to “protect human dignity,” according to the group’s website.

‘Missing permits’

Following a special election in 2008, town officials granted a conditional use permit to the Hudson Correctional Facility for up to 1,250 inmates not to be released into the town of Hudson or Weld County.

The permit also stipulates that any proposed use change “must be brought back to the Town for a revision to the Conditional Use.”

It is unclear whether additional special use permits had ever been back to the town for approval.

Hudson Town Manager Bryce Lange said he has not been notified of “missing permits,” adding that the town doesn’t manage the permitting process for other agencies.

“We understand that immigration enforcement policies are a topic of national debate, but the Town’s role is not to determine immigration enforcement,” Lange said in an email to The Denver Gazette. “However, the Town remains committed to focusing on its roles at the local level such as water, wastewater, streets and public safety.”

Lange maintained that the town has very little control over federal operations.

Last week, nearly 200 protesters, many from metro Denver, descended on Hudson, gathering outside Town Hall about an hour before the regularly scheduled town council meeting to protest the reopening of the town’s shuttered prison as an immigration detention center.

The federal government has signed a five-year contract with private prison company GEO Group.

Signed July 9, the contract comes a year after the Trump administration told Colorado’s congressional delegation it planned to reopen the shuttered Hudson Correctional Facility as an immigration detention center.

The deal is worth up to $528.6 million, federal contracting records show.

Located about 30 miles northeast of Denver in Weld County, the Hudson Correctional Facility is a medium-security prison that closed a decade ago.

The prison is operated by the GEO Group, while the Highlands REIT Inc. — a real estate investment firm — owns it. The new deal with GEO Group will effectively double Colorado’s immigration detention capacity to about 2,700 beds.

The Geo Group operates more than a dozen detention facilities across the United States, including the Aurora Detention Center.