Kansas judge hears arguments over CoreCivic’s attempt to house ICE detainees in Leavenworth

By Andy Alcock

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    LEAVENWORTH, Kansas (KMBC) — A courtroom packed with people listened to arguments involving a private company’s plans to bring Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, detainees to its Leavenworth facility.

CoreCivic wants to house those ICE detainees at its Midwest Regional Reception Center.

However, in March, city leaders approved a resolution requiring CoreCivic to apply for a special use permit.

When the company applied, then withdrew the application, arguing it wasn’t necessary, city leaders obtained a temporary injunction in June to stop CoreCivic’s plans.

At a hearing Monday morning lasting about an hour, arguments were made about formalizing the written language of that temporary injunction.

A CoreCivic attorney also argued it should be tossed out altogether.

“This is a routine board of zoning appeals issue, and the city has provided no response to this court, why that wouldn’t be the case here,” said Taylor Concannon Hausmann, CoreCivic’s attorney.

“CoreCivic is about to operate a jail or prison within the city limits. Number two, they don’t have a permit to do so,” Joe Hatley, an attorney for the city of Leavenworth, argued in court.

A special use permit would require public hearings.

Spectators in the gallery openly opposed CoreCivic’s plans.

Some of them wore printed signs on their clothing.

“They’re one of the largest for-profit private prison corporations in the country. And I don’t think they belong in Kansas. I don’t want them anywhere in Kansas,” said Nancy Stark, part of a group called Advocates for Immigrant Rights and Reconciliation.

As KMBC has previously reported, CoreCivic hasn’t housed inmates at its Leavenworth facility since the Biden administration stopped keeping detainees for the U.S. Marshals Service there in 2022, after the American Civil Liberties Union pushed to close the detention center.

That decision followed reports of dangerous understaffing, injuries, lack of local law enforcement access to the facility, and repeated sewer system problems.

“We don’t want this being used as an ICE detention center. Immigrants are a very marginalized group of people. And with this abusive and negligent history, it’s just not a good place,” said Ashley Hernandez with the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth.

CoreCivic’s attorney argued Monday that those past issues aren’t relevant for an injunction to stop the company from housing ICE detainees.

“The city continues to cast past harms as a present and future risk, noting that it’s all but certain these issues will re-emerge. The city’s speculation of potential future harm based on past experiences does not constitute irreparable harm as a matter of law,” Hausmann argued in court.

City leaders and their attorneys argue that because CoreCivic stopped holding inmates in 2022, the company must apply for a special use permit.

“They are absolutely welcome to file an application for a special use permit. And the city would consider it as it would consider any other special use permit in the city,” said David Waters, an attorney for the city of Leavenworth.

“I couldn’t sleep at night knowing that I didn’t do everything that was within my power to make sure a concentration camp didn’t come to my state,” said Sarah Robinson. “They’re holding people without due process. They’re kidnapping people off of the street. They’re kidnapping U.S. citizens, children, and they’re holding them in inhumane and unsafe conditions. That to me is a concentration camp.”

After the Monday hearing, the judge said he’d have a decision shortly but didn’t offer a specific time for it.

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