DENVER — Adams County health officials are investigating Colorado’s only immigration detention center after immigrant-rights advocates alleged that a wave of largely untreated illness had swept through the facility.

County health officials “received multiple reports about possible gastrointestinal and respiratory illness,” Health Department spokesman Jennifer Lucero-Alvarez said. Representatives from the county and the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment visited the facility Jan. 7, she said, and Adams County is leading an investigation into the claims.

The health investigation was sparked by reports from advocacy groups, which said they’d heard reports describing fever, vomiting and dehydration among detainees throughout the Geo Group-operated facility, said Jennifer Piper of the American Friends Service Committee in Denver, which works with detainees.

Lucero-Alvarez declined to provide additional information about the health conditions in the facility, which illnesses are or may be present, and how many of the facility’s detainees are sick. She said the agency would provide more information once the investigation was completed.

In an email, Geo spokesman Christopher Ferreira said reports of an outbreak in the facility were “not accurate.”

“There is no outbreak at the Aurora ICE Processing Center,” he wrote.

Amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, the Aurora facility recently expanded its capacity to its maximum bed size of 1,530 detainees.

An Immigration and Custom Enforcement report earlier this month listed its population at 1,153 — of which 828 people were listed as noncriminal detainees. But a separate January report from U.S. Rep. Jason Crow’s office said the housing pods in the facility “were visibly all near capacity. ICE officials also told congressional staff that the facility was nearly full.”

Advocates for immigrants first began hearing concerns about an outbreak at the facility in December, said Piper, the program co-director for AFSC. She said advocates were first told of illness in an annex building but added that it since had spread to the main facility.

Citing reports from people inside the facility, Piper said the sick have “a very high fever, they get dehydrated and they’re also vomiting.” She said some housing pods were overcrowded, increasing the spread of disease and backing up toilets.

According to Crow’s report, the facility’s medical team told congressional staff in early January that “there are several flu cases being quarantined in the medical unit but did not confirm precise numbers.” The medical staff also said there were no outbreaks in the facility.

Only one person in the facility had COVID-19 as of Jan. 5, according to Crow’s report, and congressional staff wrote that the data had been confirmed by local health officials.

Two immigration attorneys who work with detainees said they’d also heard about illness in the facility. The Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition accused Geo in a statement of “deliberate medical neglect” and of allowing overcrowding.

Detainees have requested to be tested for COVID-19 and for flu, Piper said, but they have largely been denied, as have requests for face masks. She said some detainees had received limited Tylenol doses at night.

“‘Everyone I’m working with is sick, and maybe getting one dose a week,” said Miriam Ordoñez Rodriguez, also of American Friends Service Committee.

Advocates have long criticized the conditions in Geo. State lawmakers are now preparing legislation that would institute more requirements on the facility, including provisions related to providing adequate medical care and ensuring proper water and temperature control.

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