Family of immigrant who died at Aurora Contract Detention files wrongful death suit against GEO Group

The minor children of Melvin Ariel Calero Mendoza — a 39-year-old Nicaraguan asylum seeker — has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against a detention center in Aurora and its medical director in connection with his 2022 death.

In addition to The Geo Group, the lawsuit also named Dr. Cary Walker, the facility’s medical director, who was the sole physician working when Mendoza died.

The lawsuit alleges that Mendoza died because Geo and Walker “failed to diagnose and treat a blood clot in his leg.”

“Melvin’s death was entirely preventable,” the family’s attorneys said in the complaint.

Attorneys for Novo Legal Group, which brought the lawsuit, allege that in the weeks leading up to Mendoza’s death, he had sought care on at least three occasions for “unbearable pain” in his right leg.

Mendoza also asked staff to relocate to a bottom bunk, which was denied, said Aaron Slade, lead counsel, at a press conference Tuesday.

“Each time, defendants failed to triage him appropriately, refer him to an appropriate medical provider for care, or correctly diagnose his medical concerns,” the complaint said. “Instead, defendants tasked entry-level nurses to diagnose and treat Melvin without supervision, and outside the scope of their nursing licenses.”

The medical treatment provided Mendoza, the complaint alleges, consisted of “over-the-counter pain medications and ice packs for his leg.”

Mendoza and his family, according to the complaint, had fled the gang violence, political turmoil and economic instability of Nicaragua.

He turned himself at the southern border with Mexico. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) transferred Mendoza, who could not make bond, to the Aurora facility, Slade said.

“There is no rhyme or reason why one person might be released into the community and another one detained,” said Laura Lunn, director of Advocacy and Litigation for Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network.

Formed in 2000, Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network provides free legal and social services to immigrants in detention.

ICE has the discretion whether and where to detain immigrants anywhere in the country, Lunn said.

Lunn called Mendoza’s death a “miscarriage of justice.”

“People who are seeking asylum are running for their lives,” Lunn said.

The suit was filed on Friday in Adams County District Court.

GEO Group is a private, for-profit prison operator that owns and runs the Aurora Contract Detention Facility, an immigration detention center with a capacity of 1,532.

As of Oct. 4, the facility held 1,245 immigrants, according to a bi-monthly accountability report.

Mendoza died on October 13, 2022.

His was not the first death at the Aurora detention center.

In 2017, Kamyar Samimi, an Iranian, died at the ICE detention center after the facility’s doctor removed him from his prescribed methadone.

And in 2012, detention staffers waited more than an hour to call 911 after Evalin-Ali Mandza — a 46-year-old immigrant from Gabon with no known heart issues — suffered a heart attack.

An investigation by the ACLU of Colorado in 2019 alleged multiple incidents that lacked care or competence.

Examples include:

• A detainee once suffered broken fingers when a guard slammed a door on his hand.

• Another had his leg amputated, necessitated after staffers ignored complaints about bedsores.

• A man died of a heart attack in 2012 after an untrained staff member was unable to properly operate the EKG machine.

• A man was brutally beaten in 2017 by other detainees because of his sexual orientation. Reported fears for safety before the attack went unheeded. Despite blurry vision and a ringing in his ears, suggesting a concussion, the staffer's only treatment was Tylenol.

Headquartered in Boca Raton, Florida, the GEO Group operates private prisons and mental health facilities in the U.S. Australia, South Africa, the United Kingdom. In addition to the Aurora detention center, the Geo Group also operates more than a dozen other facilities in at least seven states including California, Texas and Pennsylvania.

The federal government awarded GEO the contract for the Aurora ICE Processing Center in 1986 to detain about 150 immigrants, according to the company’s website.

“The announcement of Melvin’s death previously gained national media attention and now the family’s lawsuit furthers the ongoing national dialog about widespread problems of inadequate medical care and dangerous conditions in immigration detention facilities across the United States—an issue advocacy groups like the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network and Professor (Elizabeth) Jordan have been working to address for years,” Novo Legal Group attorneys said in a news release.

Jordan is the director of the Immigration Law & Policy Clinic at the University of Denver. 

GEO did not respond to an email seeking comment on the case.