KSHB 41 reporter Rachel Henderson covers neighborhoods in Wyandotte and Leavenworth counties. Share your story idea with Rachel.
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The City of Leavenworth and CoreCivic continue their legal battle in the Leavenworth District Court.
More people are opposed to the possibility of an ICE detention center being built.
Over 50 demonstrators held a rally Wednesday outside the Leavenworth County Justice Center.
Wednesday’s hearing was about CoreCivic’s motion to dismiss the City’s amended petition.
CoreCivic asked the court to dismiss three counts: a declaratory judgment action in Count I, the city’s claim for injunctive relief in Count II, and the city’s public nuisance claim in Count IV.
Taylor Concannon Hausmann, the lead attorney representing CoreCivic, argued that the city’s speculation about CoreCivic’s actions regarding the ICE detention center it wants to open makes for an unfair ruling.
“The city is stacking speculation upon speculation to ask this court to absolve it of its pleading allegations,” Hausmann said.
Hausmann also spoke to the hierarchy between the federal government and local government.
“CoreCivic has a contract with ICE, but fueled by political discourse and polarization, the city, in an attempt to impede the executive branch’s execution of its immigration policies and partnership with CoreCivic, and exert further control over MRRC and its operations, has attempted to covertly and administratively rescind CoreCivic’s existing special use as a detention facility and require CoreCivic to apply for an obtain an SUP,” Hausmann said.
She went on to add that “the city's conduct violates intergovernmental immunity by interfering with and impermissibly regulating the federal government's operations.”
The city argues its desire for a special use permit remains consistent and applies to the “nonconforming use” that CoreCivic’s facility falls under.
“They have to get a permit no matter who they want to contract with, so there's no discrimination here,” said Joe Hatley, one of the attorneys representing the city of Leavenworth.
Attorneys representing the city also maintain that CoreCivic can apply for a special use permit at any point.
They say the city has yet to receive an application since it withdrew its application in March, arguing it never needed one since the facility never closed after an executive order was issued in 2021 and CoreCivic stopped housing detainees in Leavenworth.
“They withdrew their application and said, ‘We don't need one, we're going to operate anyway,’” Hatley said.
CoreCivic has since stressed the urgency in adhering to its contract with ICE, something David Waters, an attorney representing the city of Leavenworth, spoke to Wednesday.
“We do not know what their timing is,” Waters said. “We have not seen their contract with ICE. We understand that they want to begin operating imminently. Our position is just going to be that they need a special use permit in order to do that.”
Judge John J. Bryant previously ruled in favor of a temporary injunction, which temporarily blocks CoreCivic from housing detainees without a special user permit.
CoreCivic has since asked for Bryant to reconsider this motion, and Bryant has since ruled he will not.
In early July, CoreCivic filed its own lawsuit against the city, which centered around the city’s March 25 resolution, which outlined that CoreCivic’s property requires a special use permit, according to the city’s development regulations.
The resolution says any nonconforming use that’s abandoned for 24 consecutive months and any discontinuance of a special use for more than 12 months gives the city the right to rescind special use, according to the city’s development regulations.
The city found that CoreCivic’s property was not used as a jail or prison for more than 36 calendar months, or since January 1, 2022 after the executive order went into effect.
CoreCivic argues it had no prior notice of this resolution until after March 25 and was under the impression that its grandfathered status still applied.
The private prison company has also argued in the past that it never shuttered its facility; rather, it kept 24-hour maintenance on site despite no longer housing detainees.
“The City continues to misleadingly suggest to the Court that “[a] property owner’s intent to carry on a grandfathered use is irrelevant if the municipality’s zoning code provides that discontinuance of the use for a specified time terminates the right to the grandfathered use,” the lawsuit reads.
In a previous hearing, Hausman addressed the topic of its grandfathered status, which the city says no longer applies.
“CoreCivic does not have a special use permit,” Hausman said. “Due to its grandfathered status, it has never had a special use permit. And as the city concedes, it was never required.”
Judge Bryant is the same judge overseeing the city’s lawsuit and CoreCivic’s lawsuit.
He’s giving both parties a week to issue a written opinion on whether or not they would like to consolidate the two cases and if they’d like to pause the legal process with a ‘stay’ since CoreCivic plans to submit a filing to the Kansas Court of Appeals.
In the meantime, the court of public opinion is loud and clear.
Speakers at Wednesday’s rally included former CoreCivic corrections officers, including Marcia Levering, who says she was brutally attacked and has permanent injuries from her time working at CoreCivic’s former Leavenworth Detention Center.
Local organizations, including the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth and ACLU of Kansas were also present.
Other speakers included Heru Amen-Ra, who says he was an inmate at the former Leavenworth detention center from 2014-2017.
“I speak from the truth, and I speak from pain,” he said. “As a Black man who lived through this system, I know what it means to be caged. I know what it means to be treated like you’re disposable, and I refuse to be silent while this country turns around and does the same thing to our immigrant brothers and sisters.”
KSHB 41’s Rachel Henderson has heard from residents in favor of the facility before.
“This isn’t about politics, Republicans and Democrats, this is about human rights,” said Sister Jean Panisko, the Community Treasurer for the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth. “Today, we say clearly: not here, not now, and not ever.”
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