By Morgan Chilson, Kansas Reflector
TOPEKA — 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 in March filed suit in U.S. District Court asking for an injunction barring CoreCivic from moving forward on a contract with ICE to turn its closed Leavenworth prison into an immigrant detention facility.
The city also asked the court to determine whether CoreCivic must obtain a special use permit before reopening the prison, as the two parties disagree about whether CoreCivic falls under the city’s development regulations.
U.S. District Judge Toby Crouse heard more than two hours of arguments Tuesday and questioned attorneys about why the injunction should be put in place. He promised a quick decision so the city would have time to appeal, if necessary, before CoreCivic follows through on its stated intent of reopening the facility June 1 as the Midwest Regional Reception Center.
“The complaint talks a lot about the scene on the ground,” Crouse said. “I’m not focused on whether this is a good idea or a bad idea.”
Crouse referred to the city’s initial filing that, in part, highlighted what it called the “unquantifiable harm caused by CoreCivic’s mismanagement.”
The city’s filing alleged difficulties CoreCivic caused in Leavenworth in the past, including failing to cooperate with city police, failing to report the death of an inmate for six days and “routinely refusing to turn over evidence.”
Instead, Crouse spent his time questioning whether the city and its attorney, Joseph Hatley, had included a good cause of action in its filings. A cause of action, according to Cornell Law School, is “a set of predefined factual elements that allow for a legal remedy.”
“What basis do I have to act?” Crouse asked Hatley.
Hatley told the judge and asserted in an interview after the hearing that a solid cause of action was CoreCivic officials declining to apply for a special use permit as required by Leavenworth development regulations.
The city of Leavenworth put development regulations in place in 2012, during the time when CoreCivic ran the prison as the Leavenworth Detention Center. At that point, it was grandfathered in because it was already operating, Hatley said.
However, the facility closed in 2021 and has not operated as a detention center since, Hatley said. That means CoreCivic must get a special use permit to reopen, a statement CoreCivic attorney Taylor Hausmann said was inaccurate.
She told Crouse that because CoreCivic has not changed the business it operates at the facility, which was open from 1992 to 2021 as a detention facility, and because they did not abandon the facility, they should not need to get a new special use permit.
Hausmann also said she believes the actions the city is taking are politically motivated.
“We think it is telling that the decision to attempt to revoke the special use did not come until after CoreCivic entered into a contract with ICE,” she said. “That’s really what this is about, to leverage greater control over CoreCivic’s operations at the MRRC. We don’t think that’s appropriate.”
Hatley said the city had not filed in court previously because CoreCivic initially agreed with the city and in February applied for a special use permit. Then the company withdrew that application in February and said it did not think one was needed.
Hatley said an injunction stopping CoreCivic from housing ICE detainees at the facility would be a temporary measure while CoreCivic walked through the process of getting a special use permit.
“We’re not talking about lengthy delay, 2 to 3 months,” he said.
Leavenworth Mayor Holly Pittman, who attended the hearing along with several other city officials, said after the hearing that the city would be amenable to working with CoreCivic.
“I think we’d entertain any business, but they need to do it the right way,” she said.
City manager Scott Peterson, also at the hearing, denied that Leavenworth’s actions are politically motivated.
More than 20 people gathered outside the Frank Carlson Federal Building in Topeka where the court hearing was held to protest CoreCivic and the for-profit detention of immigrants. Many were part of the Kansas Interfaith Action advocacy group, said Rabbi Moti Rieber, who spoke passionately about why he objected to reopening the Leavenworth prison as an ICE facility.
He called CoreCivic a “bad corporate actor.”
“It’s the confluence of a lot of dysfunction,” Rieber said. “The private prison industry and Trump’s racist immigration policies are all coming together. At the current time, we’re seeing Trump’s ICE gestapo taking people off the streets, putting them in prison without due process. CoreCivic wants to take advantage of that.”
Others, like Pastor Jordan Stone from Atonement Lutheran Church in Overland Park, said this went against her faith.
“I think caring for our neighbors, caring for the least of these is important,” she said. “Standing up as a person of faith and saying this is not okay is important.”
Stone said others may have different viewpoints about that, but she believes it comes from a place of fear.
“I think it doesn’t come from a place of caring,” she said.
Pastor Joanna Harader, of Bethel College Mennonite Church in Newton, spoke against private prisons and CoreCivic’s track record. She also was concerned about the current administration’s treatment of immigrants.
“I’m disturbed by the lack of due process being given to immigrants,” Harader said.
