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Zoning rules, permits and fire codes are typically mundane aspects of running a city. But as the Trump administration seeks more migrant detention space, they're a secret weapon for cities trying to avoid reopening troubled prisons to house people awaiting deportation. Zane Irwin of the Kansas News Service reports from Leavenworth, Kansas.
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ZANE IRWIN, BYLINE: William Rogers is walking on freshly mowed grass outside of a closed private prison in Leavenworth, Kansas, where he worked as a corrections officer five years ago. He points out a concrete building on the other side of a tall, barbed wire fence and recalls how an inmate attacked him there in 2018 with a metal lunch tray.
WILLIAM ROGERS: When he hit me in the back of the head, I mean, it hurt, but I didn't know it was split open, right? 'Cause at that point, you're just going to fight.
IRWIN: Rogers got 14 staples in his head and went back to work. CoreCivic, one of the largest private prison operators in the country, shuttered that facility in 2021. The Justice Department Office of the Inspector General documented dangerous levels of understaffing in a 2017 report. Former employee Marcia Levering described the consequences of that problem at a local public hearing.
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MARCIA LEVERING: Murders, assaults, poor living conditions, and some units had half of their cell doors compromised.
IRWIN: In a statement, CoreCivic said allegations of dangerous conditions reflect isolated incidents during a limited time frame.
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IRWIN: Now construction is underway to reopen the old prison to house a thousand immigrant detainees from around the country. The proposal comes as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement - or ICE - aims to double national detention capacity to 100,000 beds, largely through contracts with private prison companies.
The Leavenworth facility is not the only prison with a history of serious issues that's reopening as an immigrant detention center. There's the Etowah County Detention Center in Alabama, the Delaney Hall facility in New Jersey, FCI Dublin in the Bay Area. Immigrant rights advocates, like Eunice Cho at the American Civil Liberties Union, are concerned that the sprint to open more detention centers poses risks to those inside.
EUNICE CHO: We've seen people in overcrowded detention facilities and intake facilities where people have been chained for days without medication support, without food sometimes, without water.
IRWIN: The city of Leavenworth is suing CoreCivic over its plans to reopen the facility in Kansas. They say the company is illegally skirting local zoning rules by not going through the formal process to get city permission. A similar legal battle is playing out in Newark, New Jersey. Officials there are trying to stop a 1,000-bed detention center from opening. The city is suing GEO Group, the private prison company running that facility, over access and inspection rights. Local governments' authority to enforce their laws might be their strongest weapon against ICE detention efforts. That's according to Professor David S. Rubenstein at Washburn University in Topeka.
DAVID S RUBENSTEIN: The zoning objections are not directed at immigration detention specifically. They're just being utilized as a way to throw some sand in the gears.
IRWIN: As local legal battles rage on, lawmakers in Congress are hashing out the details of the Trump administration's budget proposal, which includes a 65% boost to the Department of Homeland Security. But even if DHS gets all of that money, it could still have to fight for local approval before opening new migrant detention facilities.
For NPR News, I'm Zane Irwin in Leavenworth.
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