DENVER — Colorado health officials formally ordered an Aurora detention center to turn over records to state inspectors Thursday, escalating a weeks-long standoff that may now end in a courtroom.

The state Department of Public Health and Environment gave Geo Group until Monday, Aug. 17 to provide information to state inspectors so they could complete a tuberculosis investigation that was first launched in June, when a detainee tested positive for the respiratory illness.

The latest order does not seek direct access to the 1,530-bed detention center. But it does request a list of individuals with confirmed or suspected cases of tuberculosis identified since June 1, as well as a list of individuals who may have come into contact with the confirmed case, and information about the person who tested positive in June and has since been deported from the U.S.

If Geo does not comply with the order, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser can file a lawsuit to force the company to turn over the requested records. In a statement Thursday afternoon, Weiser said he was “committed to enforcing this public health order and defending Colorado law.”

“CDPHE’s priority is protecting everyone connected to the facility, including detained people, employees, contractors, visitors and the broader community,” CDPHE executive director Jill Hunsaker Ryan said in a separate statement. “We sought to complete this routine investigation collaboratively, just as we would with any other facility in Colorado. Because repeated requests and the county’s public health order have not produced the necessary information, we are taking this additional step to obtain the information needed to protect public health.”

A Geo spokesman deferred questions to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Thursday afternoon.

The order is an escalation of what has become a protracted standoff between health officials and the state’s only immigrant detention center. After a detainee tested positive in June, Adams County health officials requested access to the facility and to records about the case and other possible infections. When that information wasn’t provided, the county issued its own health order. With Geo refusing to budge, Hunsaker Ryan sent the company a letter in mid-July demanding access within 48 hours. That request was rebuffed.

Late last month, CDPHE spokeswoman Hope Shuler told The Denver Post that the confirmed TB patient was no longer in the facility. She said Geo had undertaken its own investigation into the case.

“That information, if true, is reassuring, but it remains summary-level, though we are not able to independently verify the information,” Shuler wrote at the time.

Adams County officials previously said that the patient who tested positive for TB last month appears to have contracted the condition outside of the facility and that the patient denied having symptoms. Federal authorities have repeatedly said there are no active cases of TB in the detention center.

The impasse had been complicated by a lawsuit that Geo filed in early June, before the TB case was confirmed. The lawsuit seeks to invalidate a new state law requiring more frequent detention center inspections, and the first hearing in the case was last month. Adams County health officials said the case had a direct bearing on their ability to enter the facility, suggesting they would not take legal action against Geo until a federal judge had weighed in on the lawsuit.

As the standoff dragged on, immigration advocates have repeatedly urged Gov. Jared Polis and state health officials to issue a health order to force Geo and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to comply with the order. Advocates staged a protest outside of the state Capitol on Monday and pressed Hunsaker Ryan, who attended the event, to issue an order.

Hunsaker Ryan told advocates the state had no timeline on filing a public health order but that state officials’ patience was wearing thin. In a town hall earlier this month, state epidemiologist Rachel Herlihy said the impasse was a “uniquely frustrating” situation.

“It’s not a magic bullet,” Hunsaker Ryan said of a health order, according to a video her exchange with advocates reviewed by The Denver Post. “So we were just hoping that we could appeal to (Geo’s) better angels and see if they want to come back into partnership with us first.”

As public health officials are still trying to get their hands around the tuberculosis investigation, advocates this week have warned of an alleged new issue in the facility: a foul, natural gas-like smell that filtered into cells starting late last week.

On Tuesday, Monique Sherman of the Rocky Mountain Immigrant Advocacy Network said she’d heard about the smell from multiple people inside the facility. She said the smell appeared to be worst at night, when internal doors were closed, and that it was making people inside the facility feel sick.

The source of the smell is unclear. Eric Hurst, spokesman for Aurora Fire and Rescue, said in a statement earlier this week that the department had received three calls about the odor between Saturday and Monday. He said that fire officials had investigated a gaseous odor “a few blocks north” of the detention center on Sunday but couldn’t locate its source. Xcel crews told fire officials that a nearby business had used a cleaning solution that smelled like propane gas.

In a statement Thursday morning, Xcel spokeswoman Lisa Anderson said Xcel crews were at the detention center on Monday because of an “odor complaint.” No natural gas leak was detected, she wrote.

ICE officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the odor. In an earlier statement to The Aurora Sentinel, the agency said that the gas leak reports were “false” and “a hoax.”

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