Scores of people who U.S. officials called “illegal aliens” when they were rounded up in the April raid of an underground Colorado Springs nightclub are being held at a contract detention center in Aurora, a federal law enforcement official told the Pikes Peak Bulletin this week. [The Pikes Peak Bulletin does not use the term “illegal aliens,” as it is widely considered dehumanizing and offensive; it is only used here in the context of a quote. -ed]
They will remain at the facility until immigration proceedings have been completed, the official said.
The Bulletin contacted law enforcement agencies, related nonprofits and Colorado officials after a Gazette report said 86 out of the 104 people detained during the raid were unaccounted for nearly three weeks after hundreds of agents swarmed the illegal nightclub run by Warike Events at South Academy Boulevard and Airport Road and shut it down.
The nightclub was operating without a license and had moved between several locations in the Springs in the months leading up to the bust, Colorado Springs Chief of Police Adrian Vasquez said at Mayor Yemi Mobolade’s monthly press conference on May 15. It had been under surveillance for months, Vasquez said.
Eighteen people who were detained in the raid had exhausted all avenues for appeal against deportation and were set to be removed from the United States, an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesman said.
Fourteen of them had criminal convictions or had been charged with crimes including heroin smuggling, assault, robbery, harassment, theft, and DUI. Two of the 14 were suspected of having ties to Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel, which is involved in the production of synthetic drugs such as fentanyl and controls smuggling routes into the United States, according to a 2025 report by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).
Rep. Jeff Crank (R-CO5) said law enforcement had “found drugs, found sex-trafficking of minors and of women” when they raided the club, which was frequented by “MS-13, Hell’s Angels, Tren de Aragua.”
“Colorado Springs is safer today because of the policies of the Trump administration,” he said.
ICE said illegal drugs and 12 firearms were seized in the raid, and one of 17 Fort Carson soldiers who were at the club on the night of the bust was arrested days later and charged with selling and conspiring to sell cocaine. No one the Bulletin spoke to corroborated the allegations of the three gangs frequenting the establishment, or of human trafficking and prostitution taking place on the night of the raid.
According to an Associated Press tally, 139,000 people were deported from the United States during President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office.
The Trump administration has said it is removing violent, dangerous criminals, “but many migrants who assert their innocence have been deported without due process,” the AP wrote.
As of late April, at least 11 people who had been held at the Aurora facility had been deported to CECOT prison in El Salvador, according to Colorado Newsline.
The 86 detainees who ICE said were at the Aurora facility were not under deportation orders, the ICE spokesman said. He was not authorized to comment on individual cases and declined to say if any of them have criminal pasts or known gang affiliations.
The Bulletin has not been able to independently confirm that the 86 people were being held at the Aurora facility, which is run by The GEO Group, a private, for-profit firm.
A 2023 report published by the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition said detainees at the Aurora facility faced aggressive, racist treatment from immigration enforcement authorities; were harassed and intimidated into forfeiting their right to due process and agreeing to leave the United States; were treated like dangerous criminals for not having legal status; and were ignored when they asked for medical care or complained about being housed in frigid conditions.
Staff for Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO6), whose district includes Aurora, regularly visit the detention facility and compile reports on conditions there following enactment of a law in December 2019 that requires members of Congress to be given access to federal immigration detention centers within 48 hours of request.
A report filed after a May 1 visit to the facility by a Crow office staffer shows that 149 detainees were taken in that week.
The GEO Group says on its website that it is committed to protecting the human rights of people in its care, including detainees, and to providing them with safe, secure, and humane environments.
ICE said detainees held in Aurora “are afforded numerous procedural protections,” consistent with their right to due process, including access to an attorney; the right to contest charges that could lead to deportation and present evidence in their favor; and examine evidence against them.
They can also call the American Bar Association’s Legal Orientation Program (LOP) for information about legal services, the ICE spokesman said – although Crow’s staff said the Trump administration halted LOP earlier this year.
Asked how ICE was able to distinguish those who were in the United States illegally from citizens and legal residents during the Springs raid, the spokesman said agents have “a range of law enforcement and intelligence techniques to identify aliens who are present in the United States without authorization or are otherwise removable.”
A woman who was at the club told KOAA News5 that she was released after providing law enforcement with her driving license, which showed she’s American.
