At least 12 people detained at a federal immigration jail in Colorado have contracted tuberculosis in recent days, according to testimony from inside the facility where dozens of others have reportedly been placed in quarantine.

Those affected by the outbreak are also being made to endure their isolation without air conditioning, one detainee who has been at the facility in Aurora since December told the Guardian, through his partner, in a telephone call on Monday afternoon.

Neither the Department of Homeland Security, nor the Geo Group, the Florida-based private company that operates the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) processing center under government contract, responded to a request for comment or confirmation.

But the Mexican detainee in his 30s, whose name the Guardian is not publishing for fear of possible retribution by guards, gave a detailed account of developments inside the troubled center over the past few days, which have included the mass testing of everyone within one of the center’s so-called pods.

The person said that all 88 people he is detained with received testing on Saturday, with 12 positive cases coming back, up from a single case three days earlier. Instead of separating those infected, he said, guards kept them together with those who were not sick, and the entire group was told they must stay in quarantine for at least a week.

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It is not known how many people are incarcerated at the center, which has a published capacity of 1,532, and the person said he was unaware if any of the other pods of detainees had been tested or returned any positive results.

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The reported infections are the latest in a series of health concerns at the Colorado immigration jail. There was another apparent TB outbreak in April last year, according to a lawsuit filed by a number of Democratic politicians seeking greater transparency from the Trump administration over deaths and disease in federal detention facilities.

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“For-profit prisons have perpetuated ICE’s lawlessness and endangered our communities,” Crow said in a statement to the Guardian. “I’ve led the charge to end this broken and humane system. Until we do, I’ll continue to conduct oversight to hold ICE accountable.”

The Geo Group, which has close ties to members of the Trump administration, a report found in May, has faced lawsuits of its own over “inhumane and unsanitary conditions” at facilities it runs.