U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement used the pretense of a national emergency to justify a secret, no-bid contract with CoreCivic that would pay the company $4.2 million per month to house detained immigrants at its vacant Leavenworth prison.
A Kansas district court barred CoreCivic Wednesday from reopening its shuttered prison until the company goes through Leavenworth’s development process to receive a special use permit.
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.
CoreCivic will know by Friday whether it will have to delay plans to begin holding Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees in June at its Leavenworth facility.
The city of Leavenworth and CoreCivic will take their fight to court June 9 to determine whether the company can reopen its prison facility as an ICE detention center without going through a permitting process.
The Trump administration’s plans for expanded immigration detentions include Kansas. While a 1,000-bed facility in Leavenworth is on hold, the majority of the state’s detention plays out in a Flint Hills jail.
Leavenworth citizens and others from across the state have stepped forward to protest CoreCivic’s plan to reopen as an ICE detention facility, speaking out through public rallies and at city meetings.
The Leavenworth City Commission voted unanimously on Tuesday for a resolution that says a private prison operator must get permission before reopening its facility in the city, rebuking the for-profit company’s plan to work with ICE.
The ACLU warns that CoreCivic’s shuttered Leavenworth jail could play a role in President-elect Donald Trump’s mass deportation plans as an immigration detention center.
The Leavenworth Detention Center, a pretrial lockup run by the nation’s largest private prison operator, CoreCivic, has been the site of two suicides and at least 10 severe beatings and stabbings this year, according to attorneys representing inmates there. Guards have quit rather than face the dangers.
