Anti-ICE Groups Planning Protest Outside House of GEO Facility Warden

Abolish ICE Denver and the Denver Communists are organizing a protest outside the house of Johnny Choate, the warden of the immigrant detention facility in Aurora, on September 19.

"We are tired of being on the defensive, and frankly, GEO and the government, they don’t care if we sit outside of the detention centers and scream until we’re blue in the face — not that there isn’t value in that. But that is their home court," says protest organizer Matt Wozniak. "We’re no longer going to be reactionary. We’re going to go on the offensive, and this is one form of that."

GEO Group, which runs the immigration detention facility in Aurora through a contract with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is speaking out against the planned demonstration, which was advertised on Facebook on September 7 with a flier that included a photo of Choate.

“The safety of our employees and those entrusted to our care is our highest priority. We are deeply troubled by the dangerous rhetoric and intimidation perpetrated by these extremist groups, who have now targeted one of our employees and his family at their home, recklessly releasing their personal information. These are the same radical organizations that stormed our facility, which has been operating in Aurora for 30 years, and desecrated our American flag," said Pablo Paez, a GEO vice president, in a statement to Westword, referring to a July 12 protest during which a handful of protesters removed an American flag flying above the Aurora detention facility and replaced it with a Mexican one.

Read more: https://www.westword.com/news/activists-will-protest-outside-home-of-aurora-immigrant-detention-facility-warden-11477654