Why a Trump-friendly Kansas town is rebuking plan for an ICE detention center
Leavenworth resident Tom Beal supports President Donald Trump — just not his plans for mass deportations.
“Yeah, he’s a little off on that one,” said Beal, a garbage truck driver, adding that millions of people already live in the United States without legal authorization. “It’s going to be pretty expensive to try to round them all up. And he keeps saying this is only stage one.”
Leavenworth County voters favored Trump over Kamala Harris by 23 points in the November presidential election. It’s a solid Trump county where prisons and Fort Leavenworth form the bedrock of a mostly conservative community of almost 84,000.
Make America Great Again signs still dot lawns months after the election.
But Trump’s audacious deportation campaign — and Leavenworth’s potential role in the effort — has divided the area as the possible local consequences of detaining large numbers of people have come into focus.
CoreCivic, a private prison company, wants to reopen a detention center on the outskirts of southeastern Leavenworth through a contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. The company intends to bring as many as 1,000 detainees to the facility, which has sat dormant for three years, with or without city approval.
The city of Leavenworth is suing CoreCivic to block it from reopening the detention center. The lawsuit, filed in federal court, came after the company backed out of a permitting process required under local zoning laws that would have put the ICE proposal through several rounds of scrutiny at public meetings.
City officials insist the lawsuit is about its permitting process, not Trump’s deportation agenda.
“This is not a statement on the current administration. It is not a statement on immigration at all,” Leavenworth City Manager Scott Peterson told a resident who asked about the private prison at a recent State of the City event.
But the local debate over CoreCivic’s plans has clearly been caught up in larger fights over deportations and immigration. While some residents like Beal question the wisdom of Trump’s strategy, others voice fears that detaining individuals awaiting deportation locally could risk public safety if they are ever released — though research indicates undocumented immigrants commit crimes at lower rates than citizens.
“On one hand, we could definitely use the extra jobs here, for sure,” said Joe Buis, a lifelong resident who runs the Leavenworth Youth Achievement Center. “But on the other hand, I can understand the potential risk to the community that could follow with that.”
Buis is torn about whether the private detention center should be allowed to reopen. He said sometimes prisoners’ families follow them to the area, which he said “doesn’t always turn out to be the best thing.” He questioned whether the city could handle an influx of new families.
And while he supports a crackdown on illegal immigration in theory, he doesn’t like what he’s seen so far.
“The way they’re going about doing it, I think, is very unfair and unconstitutional,” Buis said.
Local opposition to CoreCivic
Beal, who runs the Leavenworth Kansas Neighborhood Watch Facebook page, said the track record of violence at the private prison before it closed in 2021 does not bode well for anyone who might be held there.
“A guy came here, he’s working. He’s got a wife and kids. He ain’t broke any laws other than being here — maybe an expired student visa,” Beal said. “Why house them with killers in a maximum security prison when a vacant Kmart would work?”
Nothing will happen at the CoreCivic facility for at least a few weeks. Leavenworth’s lawsuit asks a federal judge to block the company from detaining anyone at the facility while the zoning fight works its way through the court system. To avoid that, attorneys representing the company have agreed in court filings not to house any inmates there before June 2.
“We don’t believe it’s right for Leavenworth’s taxpayers to have to pay for a lawsuit protesting the opportunity at our facility that would result in the creation of 300 jobs, payments worth millions of dollars to the city, and a vital solution to one of the most pressing challenges facing the country,” Ryan Gustin, CoreCivic’s public affairs director, said in statement.
CoreCivic’s plans have attracted opposition from former employees, as well as the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas.
William Rogers, a Wyandotte County resident and former prison guard who worked at CoreCivic’s Leavenworth facility from 2016-2020, has previously told The Star that chronic understaffing precipitated rampant drug use and an environment of violence in the private prison when it was last open.
Another former prison guard, Marcia Levring, told city commissioners last month that she’s been forced to undergo 16 surgeries since 2021, when an inmate stabbed her four times — once in the ear, once in the right arm and twice in the abdomen. Levring hasn’t been able to work since the brutal attack and now walks with a cane.
Over the last three years, repeated efforts by CoreCivic to advance its ICE proposal have fallen apart amid local resistance.
“Despite clear opposition, regardless of our collective memory of harm, CoreCivic seeks to open their doors again, this time as an ICE detention facility in our backyard. However, the people of Leavenworth have not forgotten,” said Sister Jean Anne Panisko of the Catholic Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth at a Thursday rally to support the city’s lawsuit.
Prison logistics and staffing
Rep. Pat Proctor, a Leavenworth Republican, said he never liked CoreCivic’s pitch to partner with ICE under the Biden administration.
Proctor, who is running for Kansas secretary of state, said in an interview in late March that the company’s previous plan would have allowed for the release of individuals locally after the adjudication of asylum claims.
Individuals who receive asylum have demonstrated they have been persecuted — or will likely be persecuted — because of their religion, race, social status or political opinions if returned to their country of origin.
“And they said, ‘No, we’re not going to release them in Leavenworth.’ But they’re free people,” Proctor said. “Once they get asylum, they’re free people. If they want to stay in Leavenworth, they can.”
The new plan, according to his talks with prison officials, is to house people awaiting deportation.
“If something happened and a judge ruled they shouldn’t be deported, they’re going to be sent back to the point of capture, and so that’s a completely different plan,” Proctor said. “I like that plan.”
Vanessa Reid, a Republican on the Leavenworth County Commission and local school board, said the prevailing opinion on CoreCivic’s desired reopening is skepticism.
“It’s kind of a tough subject but I think overall there’s more backlash than there is support,” Reid said. “I think one of my biggest concerns is, where would they get the staffing? Because the federal prison is short, the state prison they’re closer to in proximity, short-staffed. So that perplexes me.”
Despite local opposition, state lawmakers anticipate that CoreCivic will eventually succeed in reopening the detention center. The Legislature approved a state budget this month that includes funding for raises at Lansing state prison to keep wages competitive in anticipation of CoreCivic’s reopening.
So does CoreCivic. Its website already lists job openings at its Leavenworth facility.
The Star’s Nathan Pilling contributed reporting.
This story was originally published April 21, 2025 at 5:26 PM with the headline "Why a Trump-friendly Kansas town is rebuking plan for an ICE detention center."
