Authorities continued to search Monday for three men who escaped from an immigration detention facility in Aurora over the weekend by climbing over two fences in the middle of the day without being caught.
One of the men, 23-year-old Amilcar Aguilar-Hernandez, from El Salvador, is a suspect in a Fort Carson rape investigation and has a criminal conviction for trespassing, according to an emailed statement from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Alethea Smock.
The two other escapees, Douglas Amaya-Arriaga and Carlos Perez-Rodriguez, are both 18 years old and from Honduras. They have no criminal history but were undocumented, Smock said.
The escapes are the most recent setback for the private facility that has recently dealt with an outbreak of mumps and chickenpox cases, a U.S. Department of Homeland Security inspection that found numerous violations of ICE policy, and broad concerns about poor health care. The facility holds people suspected of violating civil immigration law, and detainees are not necessarily suspected of committing a crime.
The three men escaped the privately owned Aurora Contract Detention Facility at 12:04 p.m. Sunday. The men climbed a 15-foot-tall chain-link fence and a wall in the facility’s recreation area to escape, Smock said. All three are wanted on federal warrants for the escape.
Staff at the 1,532-bed detention facility called Aurora police about the three escapees at 12:10 p.m. Sunday, Aurora police spokesman Anthony Camacho said.
But officers didn’t arrive at the facility until 12:47 p.m. because they were busy with other calls, including a structure fire and a fight involving more than a dozen teens, Camacho said.
“We had no one available,” he said.
Police searched around the detention center but did not find the escaped men. The facility is located in northeast Aurora near Sand Creek Park, just west of Stapleton.
ICE officials did not release any information about the escapes until more than 24 hours later.
The GEO Group, the company that owns and operates the facility through a contract with ICE, provides all guards and security personnel for the location, Smock said in an interview with The Denver Post. She said she did not know when the last escape from the facility occurred.
Pablo Paez, executive vice president of corporate relations for The GEO Group, declined to comment Monday and referred a reporter’s questions to ICE. The Florida-based company owns and manages the Aurora center as well as dozens of other immigration and corrections facilities across the country.
Smock said that anybody who sees the escaped men should call 911.
