It was a beautiful Might night in Leavenworth, Kansas, however as an alternative of strolling alongside the Missouri River or gardening, a bunch of locals sat on squeaky folding chairs on the public library to debate their mission: Learn how to cease a personal jail behemoth from warehousing immigrants down the street.
This was taking place in a famously pro-prison city, dwelling to one of many oldest federal penitentiaries, and the place President Donald Trump received greater than 60% of the vote in 2024. Moreover the army and the Veterans Affairs medical middle, prisons are the most important employer on this neighborhood, 30 miles northwest of Kansas Metropolis. With federal immigration detention services across the nation packed as a result of Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts, the personal jail trade is experiencing a growth. Inventory costs of firms like GEO Group and CoreCivic soared as they gained scores of contracts.
However when CoreCivic utilized earlier this 12 months for a allow in Leavenworth to reopen a jail with a troubled historical past to carry immigration detainees, metropolis officers balked. And native residents — together with some former jail workers — pushed again.
That night on the library, the residents waited to listen to whether or not a federal decide would determine if Leavenworth had the precise to inform CoreCivic to buzz off. No matter what occurred in courtroom, organizers of this “teach-in” have been getting ready attendees for the following doable spherical of the battle. Over home made chocolate chip cookies and solar tea, they talked about tips on how to get letters revealed within the Leavenworth Instances and reminded attendees to politely pester elected officers.
Native organizer (and cookie baker) Rick Hammett prompt to the group that political and company pursuits had stirred fears of immigrants forward of the 2024 election cycle to profit personal prisons.
“To be worthwhile, personal jail companies should be sure that prisons will not be solely constructed but in addition stuffed,” Hammett stated. “Which is how you find yourself with a scare tactic over migrants to drum up a cause to place folks in jail.”
In early June, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement reported essentially the most immigrant arrests in a single day in its historical past: Greater than 2,200 folks.
Ashley Hernandez is an organizer for the Sisters of Charity Leavenworth, one of many teams opposing the privately run immigration detention facility.
Ashley Hernandez, an organizer for the Sisters of Charity Leavenworth, lamented that CoreCivic has portrayed those that oppose the detention facility as “out-of-town” agitators. However this room is filled with locals, she famous. “They’re the surface group.”
The Sisters of Charity is a Catholic convent — they like the time period “neighborhood” — that has been in Leavenworth longer than the prisons — even earlier than statehood. A part of the Sisters’ mission is to “advocate for justice and systemic change” for exploited and marginalized folks, Hernandez later defined.
The nuns “perceive the historical past of injustices which have gone on in that jail, and so they’ve by no means been okay with that,” she stated.
Leavenworth’s landmarks trace at a progressive previous that dates to a minimum of the 1850s, when Kansas opposed slavery and fought for admission to the U.S. as a free state. The hassle’s most radical proposal was the “Leavenworth Structure,” which asserted that “all males are by nature equally free and unbiased.” Leavenworth’s metropolis corridor has statues of Woman Liberty and President Abraham Lincoln; a close-by park has a plaque for ladies’s suffragist Susan B. Anthony, who frolicked right here along with her newspaper writer brother. The panorama is dotted with little reminders that individuals who don’t have energy can all the time battle for it.
Downtown Leavenworth, Kansas, in June 2025.
Many locals keep in mind what occurred when CoreCivic beforehand ran the detention middle, housing largely pretrial detainees for the U.S. Marshals from 1992-2021. They recall guards who have been completely injured by assaults from prisoners, and understaffing that undermined safety, in response to a federal audit.
Mike Trapp, a neighborhood author and activist who reserved the room for the library teach-in, stated he’s seen some softening lately amongst his neighbors who’re Trump voters. Even those that help the mass deportations “are on our facet in not trusting CoreCivic to do the precise factor,” he stated.
Scandals plagued the power throughout its ultimate years of operation — beatings, stabbings, suicides and alleged sexual assaults, in response to courtroom data. Leavenworth police stated they have been blocked on the gate from investigating crimes inside. The ability lastly closed in 2021 because the Biden administration shifted away from personal jail contracts.
The town modified its ordinance since CoreCivic initially opened a jail right here, simply six miles south of the federal authorities’s personal large medium-security penitentiary, which has been working since 1903. The principles now require a brand new jail operator to search a metropolis allow. CoreCivic paid a charge and utilized for a allow in February to reopen its facility, now referred to as the Midwest Regional Reception Heart. However the agency shortly reversed course as residents’ opposition mounted.
CoreCivic argued in courtroom filings that as a result of it retained workers in Leavenworth, it by no means actually closed — and didn’t want a allow to reopen the power. Metropolis leaders responded by suing in federal courtroom, after which state courtroom, in search of to dam CoreCivic from repopulating the power. In filings, the town argued the corporate beforehand ran an “absolute hell gap,” and the notorious American jail city didn’t need this one.
In an editorial within the Kansas Reflector, critics of reopening the jail fumed: “CoreCivic has repeatedly proven that it’s incapable of operating a humane facility. Now, the corporate flouts metropolis approval to maneuver ahead with an ICE middle based mostly on false guarantees.”
Some in Leavenworth opposed the brand new facility as a result of they feared a flood of undocumented immigrants may very well be launched domestically, main CoreCivic to repeatedly promise that any settlement with ICE would strictly prohibit that.
In early June, a state district decide sided with the town and issued a brief injunction, saying the corporate wanted a allow.
David Waters, a lawyer for the town, stated the case is about following the allowing course of and never about “immigration coverage, writ giant.”
Every week later, CoreCivic filed a movement asking the District Courtroom decide to rethink, arguing that the town did not show reopening the power would trigger “irreparable” future hurt or that the corporate wanted a allow.
Leaders at CoreCivic have dismissed critics, saying the corporate has had greater than 1,600 candidates for 300 jobs with a beginning wage of $28.25 per hour, plus advantages.
“We keep the place that our facility, which we have operated for nearly 30 years, doesn’t require a Particular Use Allow to look after detainees in partnership with ICE,” stated Ryan Gustin, senior director of public affairs, in an e mail.
He touted the corporate’s guarantees to Leavenworth: A one-time influence charge of $1 million, a $250,000 annual charge, and an extra $150,000 annual charge to the police division. That is along with the over $1 million in annual property taxes CoreCivic already pays, Gustin stated.
The Reception Heart initially anticipated “residents” as of June 1. The corporate has posted quite a few images of its warden handing out $10,000 checks to veteran’s causes and the Salvation Military.
In authorized filings, CoreCivic argued that stopping the opening of its 1,000-plus mattress facility would price it greater than $4 million per thirty days. In a federal monetary disclosure filed in Might, the corporate said its letter settlement for the Leavenworth facility with ICE approved cost as much as practically $23 million for a six-month interval “whereas the events work to barter and execute a long-term contract.”
Gustin stated many of the issues about security and safety of the power have been “concentrated in an 18-month interval” over 30 years of operations, and attributed staffing shortages to the COVID-19 pandemic and a decent labor market. “As with all tough state of affairs, we sought to be taught from it,” he stated.
When CoreCivic beforehand operated the Leavenworth Detention Heart, Tina Shonk-Little was detained there for about 16 months for insurance coverage fraud. She described for the group that night time on the Leavenworth library how medical and dental care within the facility was scant.
“Should you had a toothache, they simply pulled it,” she stated. Her smile bears the scars.
She recoiled when Hammett cited public data displaying CoreCivic’s CEO earned greater than $7 million final 12 months. Company leaders at CoreCivic and GEO Group gushed on latest earnings calls concerning the “unprecedented alternative” they’re dealing with with Trump in workplace. Advertisements and textual content messages present CoreCivic is providing new guards $2,500 signing bonuses.
Throughout the river in rural Missouri, cash-strapped sheriff’s departments are signing as much as maintain ICE detainees in small jails for $110 per night time, per head, and to move them so far as Kansas Metropolis for $1.10 per mile. Emails obtained by way of public data requests present that a couple of week after Trump was elected, CoreCivic management started contacting Leavenworth metropolis officers about reopening their facility there.
“They do not wish to do higher. They’re in it for revenue,” Shonk-Little stated. “They might give two shits concerning the folks. The extra folks they’ve, the higher off they’re as a result of it is extra money of their pocket.”
Shonk-Little expressed sympathy for the corrections officers who labored there. “God bless the corrections officers who did what they may with what that they had,” she stated.
Towards the again of the room sat Invoice Rogers, a brick wall of a person who spends practically two hours a day within the fitness center. He was a kind of guards. A couple of minutes after her speech, Rogers stood instantly, trying like a frog was lodged in his throat, as his eyes welled with tears.
Invoice Rogers is a former correctional officer who labored at CoreCivic’s detention middle in Leavenworth. He opposes the corporate’s plan to reopen the power.
He spoke on to Shonk-Little: “What braveness… to return right here. And all the things you stated was proper. It was true. I keep in mind. And as a former officer, I apologize. That is all I can say.”
She responded: “I am sorry you have been handled the way in which you have been handled additionally.”
They hugged.
At a espresso store the following morning, Rogers defined he was a highschool dropout and heavy gear operator who thought $20 an hour, plus advantages, working for CoreCivic appeared like a superb gig.
“I simply wanted a job,” he recalled. He began working as a correctional officer in 2016 and initially cherished it.
“I guess you 85% of these inmates I met? I might have frolicked with them on the road. They have been simply first rate individuals who made a mistake. I actually consider that,” he stated.
Not lengthy after Rogers began, the voluntary time beyond regulation shifts turned necessary. A 2017 audit by the Division of Justice discovered that understaffing was hurting security and safety on the facility. In latest courtroom filings, legal professionals for Leavenworth accused CoreCivic of gross mismanagement of the earlier facility, leading to “Rampant abuse, violence and violations of the constitutional rights of its detainees and employees.”
Invoice Rogers gathered data in opposition to his former employer’s deliberate immigrant detention facility.
They referenced one incident in November 2018, when CoreCivic didn’t report the demise of an inmate to metropolis police for six days.
It’s that demise that haunts Rogers’ desires. Dillon Reed was solely 29 when he ended up on the Leavenworth facility on a drug cost, however Rogers remembered he was a humorous, candy child who reminded him of his grownup son.
“He made me snort,” Rogers stated.
Reed had an dependancy, and alcohol and medicines have been rampant contained in the jail, Rogers stated. On Thanksgiving Day in 2018, Reed was discovered lifeless in his cell. Rogers was working in a special part of the power, however he was referred to as to take away Reed’s physique from his cell. An post-mortem later confirmed that Reed doubtless died of sudden cardiac demise, with a combination of alcohol and medicines in his system.
Rogers nonetheless can’t discuss it with out getting choked up. Calling an ambulance shortly might have saved Reed, he stated.
“When that door got here open? I didn’t see an inmate. I noticed a younger man…and I noticed my son,” he stated. “I don’t care that he was an inmate…he was a human soul. He shouldn’t have died. We had a job to do, and it didn’t occur that day.”
In 2020, Rogers was stabbed within the hand and had his head cut up open with a cafeteria tray by combative prisoners. Later that 12 months, he was so fed up with the dearth of safety, he stated, that when a prisoner got here at him, he shoved the person in opposition to the wall — and was fired.
A few of Rogers’ former detention officer mates received’t discuss to him anymore, as a result of he’s been talking out, he stated. He stated they inform him: “You didn’t do shit if you labored there, and now you’re operating your mouth.”
Rogers’ former CoreCivic colleague Marcia Levering can be talking out concerning the assault by a prisoner that just about killed her. She was working in February 2021, shortly earlier than the power closed, when a colleague opened the improper safety door. A prisoner who was indignant at her beat her senselessly and stabbed her a number of occasions. She spent two months within the hospital and is now completely disabled, struggling to pay her lease.
“They don’t seem to be searching for the security of their inmates or employees,” Levering stated of CoreCivic. “They’re searching for their very own self-interest, which is taking the taxpayers’ cash to line the pockets of their higher-ups.”
Legal professionals for the Metropolis of Leavenworth filed a movement final week asking the state district decide to formalize the non permanent injunction. The movement states that the “federal authorities may apply strain on CoreCivic to defy or search for loopholes on this Courtroom’s orders,” whereas noting that the corporate has “accelerated” exercise on the detention middle.
In the meantime, residents are planning a march in opposition to the detention middle for July 19. They plan to satisfy 10 days earlier at Momo’s Knitting Nook to make home made protest indicators.
