LEAVENWORTH, Kan. — While the court battle continues about whether hundreds of ICE detainees will be funneled into the CoreCivic prison in Leavenworth, residents continue having their own debates about how the prison will impact their community.
"CoreCivic is going to look to have as many prisoners as possible," Linda Johnson, a Leavenworth resident, said on Saturday.
The latest debate took place on Saturday afternoon at the Leavenworth public library, with people for and against it, in attendance.
"I really wish CoreCivic was here," another woman said.
What everyone seemed to agree on was that CoreCivic's absence from the town hall left a lot of questions unanswered.
"My question to CoreCivic, which I wished they would have showed up, is what happens when your pumps fail and our pumps have to take over chewing up all the nasties that's going to go down that toilet?" Samuel Maxwell IV said. "You're going to put more strain on our infrastructure doing that."
Residents aren't just worried about the strain on infrastructure but also the strain on the local police.
"When you are a private prison provider, you don't have your in-house police departments," Mike Trapp said. "It puts additional strain on Leavenworth police department. They're short 9 positions. It has some marginal economic impact for Leavenworth and we will provide all our taxes, will provide all those deluxe police services, not answering our 911 calls because of their endless quest to try to investigate crimes that happen at CoreCivic."
The CoreCivic Opposition Group, which organized Saturday's townhall, said they invited CoreCivic's representatives, but they did not come.
