By admin 
Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser on Wednesday sued the operator of the immigrant detention center in Aurora in an effort to force the company to cooperate with an investigation into tuberculosis at the facility.
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The lawsuit, against the Florida-based GEO Group, was filed in state court in Adams County, where the facility is located.
“The GEO Group is endangering Coloradans’ public health by refusing to follow the state health department’s order and by violating Colorado law,” Weiser said in a statement.
The suit comes after weeks of effort by state and local health officials to get GEO to turn over information related to a positive case of tuberculosis in the Aurora facility that was identified in June. Authorities are seeking details on where the infected person is now, who else may have been exposed to the highly contagious disease, whether those people have been tested and where they are.
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GEO, meanwhile, is challenging the state’s authority to conduct health investigations at the facility in federal court. With the attorney general’s lawsuit Wednesday, the two cases appear to be on a collision course that would pit state oversight power against federal autonomy.
The showdown began in June, when a testing lab reported a positive case of tuberculosis in someone housed at the facility. After an initial meeting and other communication with local health authorities, GEO stopped responding to requests for information. It similarly denied answers to Colorado U.S. Sen. John Hickenlooper when he visited the facility earlier this week.
The company, backed by U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement, for whom it operates the facility, has said that there are no active cases of tuberculosis at the facility and that it has conducted its own public health investigation.
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This is a developing story and will be updated.