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Dec. 19, 2024 |  By: Allison Kite - Missouri Independent

Shuttered private jail in Kansas could become immigration detention center

jail bed

By Allison Kite - Missouri Independent

CoreCivic inquired with federal officials in June about turning its shuttered Leavenworth jail into an immigration detention center, according to documents recently obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The facility, the ACLU warns, could be used as a hub for mass deportation efforts under President-elect Donald Trump’s administration.

CoreCivic Inc., the nation’s largest private prison operator, responded in June to a request by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to help identify potential detention facilities in the Midwest and other regions, according to the ACLU’s documents. The company offered information on several of its facilities across the country.

Among them was the Midwest Regional Reception Center, which was previously operated as the Leavenworth Detention Center, a pre-trial detention facility for detainees charged with — but not convicted of — federal crimes in Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa and western Missouri.

During its time as a pre-trial detention facility, the Leavenworth Detention Center grappled with persistent violence.

Micah Kubic, executive director of the ACLU of Kansas, said in a statement that an expanded ICE presence “will deeply harm our fellow Kansans.”

“The community of Leavenworth has made it clear multiple times that ICE and CoreCivic are not welcome to wreak the havoc of federal immigration enforcement here,” Kubic said, “and local and state leaders do not have to give in.”

In a statement, Ryan Gustin, director of public affairs for CoreCivic, said the company’s immigration facilities “operate with a significant amount of oversight and accountability” and are monitored and audited by ICE officials.

“The services we provide help the government solve problems in ways it could not do alone — to manage unprecedented humanitarian crises, dramatically improve the standard of care for vulnerable people and meet other critical needs efficiently and innovatively,” Gustin said. “These are problems the American public has made clear they want fixed.”

The ACLU obtained documentation of CoreCivic’s response to ICE’s request for potential detention space through a lawsuit accusing ICE of failing to comply with the Freedom of Information Act. It also obtained documentation of responses to ICE from owners of potential detention sites in Texas, Nevada, New Mexico and California.

Kansas Reflector also sought information on responses to ICE’s request for detention space under the Freedom of Information Act in September, but has not received any documents.

The revelations come as Trump has promised to deport immigrants quickly after he takes office in January.

Eunice Cho, a senior staff attorney for the ACLU’s National Prison Project, said in a press release that President Joe Biden’s administration is “paving the way for … Trump to make good on his cruel and inhumane mass deportation proposals.”

“You cannot have mass deportations without significant expansion of ICE detention capacity in states across the country,” Cho said, “and that’s exactly what the incoming Trump administration is preparing to do.”

Gustin said CoreCivic does not advocate for or against legislation “that serves as the basis for — or determines the duration of — an individual’s detention.”

“Our responsibility is to care for each person respectfully and humanely while they receive the legal due process that they are entitled to,” Gustin said.

For years, CoreCivic operated the Leavenworth Detention Center through a contract with the U.S. Marshals Service, but it closed at the end of 2021 under an executive order signed by Biden banning renewal of U.S. Department of Justice contracts with private prisons.

As of June 2020, the facility could hold about 1,000 detainees.

The CoreCivic jail’s closure brought persistent speculation about what the company might do with the building, including whether it might become an ICE detention center. Just ahead of the closure in 2021, ICE told KCUR it was not pursuing a contract with CoreCivic to use the facility.

But in the years that followed, Leavenworth County discussed with CoreCivic the possibility of converting the facility to house immigration detainees. The county would have served as an intermediary in a contract with CoreCivic and ICE.

Commissioners voted in September 2023 to halt negotiations over the arrangement. Opposition to the proposal ranged from anti-immigration sentiments about releasing detainees into Leavenworth to immigration and civil rights advocates’ concerns about the facility’s history of violence and safety issues.

An investigation by Kansas Reflector in 2021 found the Leavenworth Detention Center was often understaffed and beset with rampant drug use and violence. The company faces a lawsuit from a former detainee who was stabbed in that year. The lawsuit, filed by Joshua Braddy, alleges at least 10 stabbings in 2021 and two suicides.

In a sentencing hearing in the fall of 2021, U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson called the facility a “hell hole.” Earlier this year, CoreCivic reached a settlement in a wrongful death case with the widow of a former inmate killed in 2021.

CoreCivic settled in 2019 with more than 500 detainees for $1.45 million for illegally recording phone calls with their defense attorneys and providing the information to prosecutors.