Centennial DENHOLD Hold Room — ICE's Busiest Secret Detention Site in Colorado
Overview
The DENHOLD hold room at ICE’s Denver field office at 12445 E. Caley Avenue in Centennial, CO (Arapahoe County) is the busiest of Colorado’s nine secret ICE hold rooms. Despite being called “Denver,” it is physically located in Centennial, within Arapahoe County. It is classified as a hold room — a bedless temporary detention site that operates outside the formal detention system with no IGSA agreements, no published bed counts, and no inspections under National Detention Standards.
Scale of Operations (2025)
Between Trump’s inauguration on January 20, 2025, and October 2025, nearly 1,400 detainees passed through DENHOLD — making it the most active hold room in Colorado by a wide margin. The nine Colorado hold rooms collectively processed 2,831 people during January–October 2025.
Conditions and Violations
- Bedless: The facility has no beds. Detainees sleep on floors or chairs.
- 72-hour rule systematically violated: ICE’s own rules limit hold room stays to 72 hours. At DENHOLD, at least one Nicaraguan man was held for 39 days (July 19–August 27, 2025). Another was held 36 days (July 22–August 27, 2025).
- Children detained: At least 39 children aged nine or younger passed through the facility. The youngest was a 1-year-old girl (transferred to the Dilley, TX family detention center on July 30, 2025). The oldest detainee was a 91-year-old man (transferred to Fort Bliss).
- Most detainees not criminals: 53% (738 individuals) were marked “Not an Aggravated Felon.” Only 29% had listed criminal charges, mostly traffic offenses and DUI.
Building Ownership
The building is owned by NGP Group, a Virginia-based firm that specializes in leasing office space to the federal government. NGP charged the government $2,198,968 annually in 2024. NGP’s managing partner David D. Kent declined to comment to reporters.
Location Ambiguity
The Colorado Times Recorder investigation noted that a previously listed DENHOLD location — a strip mall in Montbello behind a 7-Eleven — no longer housed the facility as of 2025 (a furniture store had moved in). ICE Denver confirmed the Centennial field office as the current DENHOLD site.
Why This Matters
DENHOLD is the gateway to Colorado’s formal detention system — the majority of people processed here are transferred to the Aurora ICE Processing Center (also in the Denver metro, but physically in Adams County). It is invisible in heatmap data because hold rooms have no IGSA, no published contracts, and no bed counts. The Arapahoe County heatmap score of 64 (igsa:4, anc-contract:3) reflects only the formal contract signals — DENHOLD adds a massive shadow detention layer on top.