Judge hands Leavenworth, Kansas, a court loss as battle over immigrant detention continues

A U.S. District Court judge ruled in favor of a private prison company that plans to use its troubled Leavenworth facility for immigration detention. The city argued CoreCivic should follow local laws first.

The city of Leavenworth cannot ask the U.S. District Court of Kansas to block a private prison company from holding immigrant detainees at its dormant facility, a federal judge ruled Thursday.

The decision is a major setback for city leaders who hoped to enforce local regulations — and for immigrant rights advocates and former CoreCivic employees who opposed the facility reopening. 

The city of Leavenworth is expected to appeal the ruling to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver.

In an email to the Kansas News Service, CoreCivic spokesperson Ryan Gustin did not confirm whether the company plans to begin housing detainees at the facility on June 1, as indicated during litigation.

“We are grateful for the Court’s decision,” he said. “And as we continue to bring jobs and other economic benefits to the community, it remains our strong desire to work in close partnership with Leavenworth and its leaders.”

U.S. District Judge Toby Crouse said his court did not have the authority to take the kind of action that the city had requested.

“The City asserts that CoreCivic should be enjoined from operating its detention facility without the proper permit,” Crouse wrote in the seven-page decision.

“But it has not pled facts to establish that subject-matter jurisdiction exists in federal court to consider that claim,” he said.

The legal battle centers around a 1,000-bed complex in Leavenworth, Kansas, that CoreCivic ran as a maximum-security private prison for federal inmates until it closed in 2021.

Former staff and inmates said they saw preventable drug use, injury and death on a regular basis — problems exacerbated by chronic understaffing, according to a 2017 audit by the U.S. Department of Justice.

Gustin told the Kansas News Service that most issues with safety and staffing were concentrated during an 18-month period coinciding with the pandemic.

“As with any difficult situation, we sought to learn from it,” he said.

Now, CoreCivic has signed a contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, to boost capacity for President Trump’s deportation agenda.

In late March, the city of Leavenworth sued to stop CoreCivic from following through on its plans. The city said a special permit is needed because the facility has not housed inmates in over three years.

That lawsuit set up a legal battle over local development regulations. Small potatoes on the surface, the case could decide whether Leavenworth becomes a key regional hub for immigrant detention.

Balls and strikes

U.S. District Court Judge Toby Crouse, a Trump appointee, rolled a baseball around in his hands as he considered the parties’ arguments.

From the outset, Crouse questioned whether his federal courtroom was the right venue to decide a conflict about local rules.

“How many federal courts get involved in zoning violations?” he asked Joseph Hatley, an attorney for the city of Leavenworth.

Hatley responded that the case satisfied the elements of diversity jurisdiction — a legal principle that gives federal courts the power to hear a case where parties from different states are arguing over a matter that could be worth $75,000 or more.

From there, Hatley fleshed out the argument presented in the initial filing from March.

He explained that Leavenworth requires special use permits for prisons. But the CoreCivic facility operated before 2012, when that rule took effect, so their facility was “grandfathered in.”

Nevertheless, Hatley said CoreCivic lost its special use permissions when it stopped using the property as a prison.

“They may have been keeping the lights on, mopping the floors,” he said. But the facility had held no inmates since then-President Joe Biden issued an executive order that caused federal contracts with private prisons, including the Leavenworth Detention Center, to end.

If the company is allowed to begin operations, Hatley said, it would fly in the face of local authority to regulate land use.

So the city asked Judge Crouse to block CoreCivic from housing inmates until it has gotten a special use permit — a process that takes multiple months and public input.

“If you can’t enforce your own laws, that’s irreparable harm,” Hatley said.

CoreCivic’s lawyer disagreed that the facility was ever truly closed.

“CoreCivic didn’t just keep the lights on,” said Taylor Concannon Hausmann, the company’s lead attorney in the case. The entire time, Hausmann said, CoreCivic employed maintenance staff and pursued new contracts.

CoreCivic applied for a special use permit in February, then quickly withdrew it — a fact both parties tried to frame to their benefit.

CoreCivic said it was a show of good faith to the city. But the company withdrew its application when it seemed like the city would put it through an extensive process and slow its collaboration with ICE.

Lawyers for Leavenworth said CoreCivic had tacitly acknowledged the correct process — and then dodged it when public scrutiny began to mount.

Throughout the hearing, Crouse remained focused on the question of whether Leavenworth had gone through the proper legal process to seek judicial intervention. He appeared critical that the city had satisfied all the legal requirements necessary to earn injunctive relief.

Hatley compared his case with other high-profile ones in New Jersey and California, where laws banning private immigration detention altogether were struck down or delayed in court. By contrast, he said, this case was purely a matter of local development regulations — not an attack on immigration detention writ large.

After the hearing, Leavenworth City Manager Scott Peterson maintained that the lawsuit was not politically motivated. Mayor Holly Pittman said the city would entertain any application for a special use permit.

But the specter of federal power and the hot-button issue of immigration loomed large in and outside of the courtroom.

On Wednesday, a federal judge said the Trump administration had “unquestionably” violated a court order by deporting migrants to South Sudan who had no connection to the country.

When asked if the federal government would obey a ruling in Leavenworth’s favor, Hatley said “it’s certainly a concern.”

Outside the courthouse

As lawyers prepared to debate the case, representatives from Kansas Interfaith Action gathered outside in speech, prayer and song.

KIFA is part of a coalition of local groups that have organized events, appearances at public meetings, and petitions to oppose the reopening.

“The command to welcome strangers is repeatedly, explicitly, over and over, given to us throughout scripture,” said the Rev. Dr. Annie Ricker, chair of the organization.

KIFA Executive Director Rabbi Moti Rieber referenced a recent U.S. Supreme Court Decision allowing the Trump administration to end a program that had protected hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan immigrants from deportation.

Rieber said the unwinding of legal safeguards for immigrants paved a path toward the removal of legal permanent residents or even citizens.

“We’re (protesting) because of who it’s affecting now, but this does not stop with the ‘other.’ It ends up with us,” he said.

Zane Irwin reports on politics, campaigns and elections for the Kansas News Service. You can email him at zaneirwin@kcur.org.

The Kansas News Service is a collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio, KMUW and High Plains Public Radio focused on health, the social determinants of health and their connection to public policy.

Kansas News Service stories and photos may be republished by news media at no cost with proper attribution and a link to ksnewsservice.org.

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