LEAVENWORTH, Kan. — In a months-long fight to open an ICE detention facility in Leavenworth, Kansas, CoreCivic revealed in a recent court filing it stands to lose millions of dollars if it's not allowed to open the facility.
There’s a lot at stake on a national level when it comes to immigration and enforcement.
Locally, CoreCivic says it’ll lose out on $4.2 million if it can’t open in Leavenworth.
The company made that argument in a June 13 court filing.
The filing asked District Court Judge John J. Bryant to reconsider his ruling that CoreCivic needs a special use permit to operate an ICE detention facility in Leavenworth.
CoreCivic entered into a letter agreement, or an agreement providing initial funding ahead of a longer contract, with ICE in March 2025 for a 1,033-bed facility in Leavenworth, according to CoreCivic's President and Chief Operating Officer, Patrick Swindle on the May 2025 earnings call.
KSHB 41’s Rachel Henderson visited the facility Monday and saw a full parking lot, security officers out front, and a new sign that reads 'Midwest Regional Reception Center.'
“It’s just really, incredibly frustrating,” said Kansas State Representative Pat Proctor, who represents Leavenworth in the Kansas Legislature.
The idea of a revenue-generating facility is a sign of economic benefit to Proctor, who supports the facility’s reactivation.
CoreCivic says it’s committed to paying the City of Leavenworth a one-time impact fee of $1 million, a $250,000 annual impact fee, and an additional $150,000 annual impact fee to the police department. That money is in addition to the over $1 million in annual property taxes CoreCivic already pays.
The “reactivation,” as CoreCivic calls it, would create approximately 300 new jobs with a starting salary of $28.25 per hour.
CoreCivic says it’s already received over 1,000 applications.
“This would be 300 people coming with their families into our communities,” Proctor said. “They’d need places to live, which would be more property taxes.”
Proctor points to Leavenworth’s negative population growth as an area of concern.
As a Leavenworth business owner of Baan Thai Restaurant, Proctor says he’s seen other businesses struggle to make ends meet in the town of about 37,000 people.
“Here we have a private prison in a private facility that will pay millions of dollars of property taxes if they’re allowed to take on this new mission, and the city government’s standing in the way of them opening and standing in the way of that revenue,” Proctor said.
Proctor says the Legislature passed a bill in the state budget contingent on the facility opening that would provide $4.1 million in additional pay for corrections officers at Lansing Correctional Facility so they’re incentivized not to leave and work for CoreCivic.
“We don’t want to de-staff the state corrections facility to staff this facility,” Proctor said.
He also says the sense of urgency ICE and CoreCivic argue justifies the expedited contract speaks to the larger immigration efforts of the Trump administration.
Trump won Leavenworth County during the 2024 presidential election, with 60% of the votes.
“We overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump because he was going to do exactly what he’s doing right now,” Proctor said.
Proctor hasn't always held this stance about the facility opening.
Back in 2023, he spearheaded efforts to ensure the county and ICE stopped negotiations for a detention center because ICE said detainees would have been released into the Leavenworth community.
Proctor says that the agreement differed from the current one because the facility would have housed people awaiting adjudication of their request to stay in America.
“I vehemently opposed that plan because once they are refugees, they can walk right out the front door and flood all of our resources,” Proctor said.
The county commission voted unanimously in September 2023 to halt negotiations with ICE.
This decision came after years of uncertainty of what would come of the former Leavenworth Detention Facility after former President Joe Biden issued an executive order banning renewed federal contracts with private prisons.
The dispute over whether or not CoreCivic’s Leavenworth facility truly closed has led to months of disagreements, now legal, between the City of Leavenworth and CoreCivic.
CoreCivic argues it never closed and always kept maintenance staff on site. The City of Leavenworth says the company needs to apply for a special use permit because it’s no longer exempt under the city’s zoning regulations.
CoreCivic applied for a special use permit, but withdrew its application weeks later.
An attorney representing the city told Henderson earlier this month that the city just wants its zoning regulations followed.
“They can build the building, they can hire people all they want,” said Joe Hatley, an attorney representing CoreCivic. “What they can’t do is house detainees.”
Proctor says he’s worried about missing the opportunities this facility could bring.
“We need to be exploring every opportunity to get people to come to Kansas and go to work,” Proctor said. “If folks are willing to do that work, we should be saluting them, not stopping them from going to work.”
