This lawsuit was filed on March 31, 2025, in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas by the City of Leavenworth, Kansas, against CoreCivic, Inc. (Case No. 5:25-cv-4032). KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The City of Leavenworth has filed a lawsuit against CoreCivic, a corporation that's tr ying to reopen its Leavenworth facility as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center—after recently being awarded a contract with ICE, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit claims that CoreCivic is trying to reopen the facility without acquiring the necessary permit from the city. Judge sides with State Tax Commission over Jackson County property assessments Before the detention center shut down in 2021, the lawsuit points out that CoreCivic was accused of multiple violations. U.S. District Court Judge Julie A. Robinson described the facility as "an absolute hell hole" in 2021. The complaint filed on Monday, March 31, opens with the following statement: “The only way I could describe it frankly, what’s going on at CoreCivic right now is it’s an absolute hell hole. The Court is aware of it. The defense bar is aware of it. The prosecutors are aware of it. The United States Marshals are aware of it. He’s doing his best to get people moved as soon as the United States Marshal Service nationally can negotiate contracts with other facilities. So that’s no news to me as well, all that’s going on there and causing trauma to everybody – guards are being traumatized. Guards have been almost killed. Detainees are being traumatized with assaults and batteries, and not long ago a detainee was killed. So I’m well aware of the situation at CoreCivic and very troubled by it as well.” United States District Court Judge Julie A. Robinson, United States v. Mathew Clark, Case No. 16-cr-20078-JAR, Doc. 87, pp. 46-47 (Transcript of Resentencing, Sept. 8, 2021). In 2012, a city ordinance (Ordinance No. 7911) went into effect, requiring certain developers to apply for a specialized use permit (SUP). CoreCivic, however, did not have to apply for a SUP because there was a "grandfather" provision that allowed it to bypass the ordinance. According to city regulations, the grandfather provision no longer applies once a facility has stopped operating for 12 months. According to the lawsuit, CoreCivic opted to close the detention center, effective Jan. 1, 2022; no detainee has resided at the center since 2021. That means CoreCivic lost its grandfathered status and would need to apply for a SUP to reopen the detention center. That’s exactly what CoreCivic did when it applied for a SUP on Feb. 21, 2025, according to the lawsuit. In its application, the lawsuit says CoreCivic claimed that the facility would house approximately 1,000 detainees at a time. It says detainees "will be held for approximately 51 days as they are processed through the immigration system," and "no ICE detainees will be released into the Leavenworth community." The city claims in the lawsuit that CoreCivic's application failed to address the following concerns: How it calculated the 51-day estimate that individual detainees would be held on average; The countless ways in which detainees may be held for longer periods or ordered free to walk out its gates by a court; Accountability for the potential strain on critical city services (such as sanitary sewer, fire protection and police services); Measures to ensure cooperation with city police investigations of violent crimes; and Assurance that the facility would be appropriately staffed so as to minimize the need for intervention by the city’s police. All of these concerns had been problems that the city encountered with CoreCivic prior to its closing in 2021, according to the lawsuit. The city said it intended to address these concerns at a public hearing that had been scheduled for April 7, as well as final hearings on May 13 and May 27. However, on March 13, CoreCivic withdrew its SUP application. FOX4 reached out to CoreCivic, and Senior Director of Public Affairs Ryan Gustin on Tuesday sent us the following statement: "We don't believe it's right for Leavenworth's taxpayers to have to pay for a lawsuit protesting efforts at the 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. We've been part of this community as a dedicated employer for more than 30 years, and our intention remains to meet the emerging needs of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) at our Midwest Regional Reception Center. As we've shared before, we believe our site is zoned properly, that a special use permit is not required under the City Code, and we look forward to partnering with the local community as we always have." According to the lawsuit, "CoreCivic withdrew its SUP application on March 13, 2025, taking the position that it does not need a special use permit because obtaining one would take too long to comply with ICE's demands." The city says in the lawsuit that this is a problem because, without a SUP, the city would not be able to determine or impose conditions regarding CoreCivic's use of the property. Here's a breakdown of the problems and violations that allegedly occurred at the detention center prior to its 2021 closing. CoreCivic failed to comply with law enforcement, lawsuit says In the lawsuit, CoreCivic is not only accused of failing to comply with law enforcement – it's accused of destroying evidence, impeding investigations and failing to report crimes in a timely manner. The lawsuit claims that the Leavenworth Police Department ran into one roadblock after another when investigating violent crimes within the detention center. The lawsuit accuses CoreCivic of prohibiting its employees – who were victims of crimes – from sitting for interviews with police while they were on duty. According to the lawsuit, officers with the Leavenworth Police Department found it difficult to access the facility at all and were often required to conduct interviews from outside the detention center's gate. "Instead, these crime victims were forced to provide an often incomplete written statement through the facility's fence and then follow up on their own time," the lawsuit states. The city also claims that officers were granted no access to other third-party witnesses to crimes, regardless of how critical their testimony may have been to a potential prosecution. CoreCivic failed repeatedly to report significant crimes that occurred on the property, often several days and sometimes months later, the lawsuit says. In November 2018, CoreCivic failed to report the death of an inmate to police for six days, the lawsuit cites as an example. The city claims in the lawsuit that CoreCivic staff refused to provide names of potential witnesses for several weeks at a time and routinely refused to turn over evidence, such as photographs and weapons that were used in assaults among inmates and against guards. This also occurred multiple times with sexual assault allegations, according to the lawsuit. On several occasions, the lawsuit says detainees and staff were instructed to clean up the crime scene before police even arrived, "which of course destroyed all evidentiary value and any hope of successful prosecution." This included an inmate death by hanging, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit also accuses CoreCivic of hindering the police department's ability to attain video evidence. "Instead of cooperating with City police investigations and providing them courtesy copies of videos (as is standard in most jails), CoreCivic forced them to go through the more cumbersome, time-consuming, and unnecessary process of obtaining a formal subpoena to obtain video evidence," the lawsuit says. Department of Justice audits CoreCivic in 2017 In 2017, the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) audited CoreCivic's contract with the U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) regarding its Leavenworth facility. The audit report cited a multitude of problems and violations. You can read the full report here. In its audit, the OIG said the USMS failed to provide sufficient oversight of the Leavenworth detention center – which allowed several problems to persist over a significant period of time. The audit also says the USMS failed to hold CoreCivic accountable to its contractual requirements and also failed to be proactive when it came to identifying discrepancies and thwarting potential incidents. The audit highlighted understaffing as a persistent problem. According to the OIG, the shortage of correctional officers led to systemic closures of security posts that were mandatory to ensure the safe and secure operation of the detention center. "Rather than take steps to address understaffing, both USMS and CoreCivic took actions that exacerbated the problem," the OIG says in its report. Instead of transferring staff from other CoreCivic facilities to help, the lawsuit claims that CoreCivic actually transferred staff to other facilities. "Bafflingly, it then added to its already disproportionate burden by agreeing to take on additional detainees from local non-federal prosecutions," the lawsuit states. The audit also says CoreCivic had been "triple bunking" detainees—but had uninstalled the triple bunk beds prior to at least one inspection in order to avoid demerits. The report also found that CoreCivic had unlawfully withheld "sick account" funds that should have been paid to correctional officers on a regular basis. ACLU urges White House to shut down Leavenworth facility Conditions only worsened after the OIG issued its audit report, the lawsuit claims. In 2021, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and regional Federal Public Defenders (FPD) sent a letter to the White House, highlighting an upward trend of violent incidents at the detention center. The lawsuit cited the following examples: Beatings and stabbings, including of correctional officers, became so rampant due to insufficient patrolling that detainees and the lawyers who visited the facility considered them routine. Suicides were prevalent due to insufficient suicide-watch monitoring. Detainees were required to clean up the feces of the deceased. Following the homicide of one detainee, the facility went on lockdown for several weeks. Detainees were not allowed out of their cells except to shower every three-to-four days and were denied basic hygienic supplies and routine medical care. Weapons were typically found stashed away following major incidents. Sexual assault reports were discouraged and impeded by management. Detainees were locked in showers as punishment. Calls for help often went unanswered, leading detainees to arm themselves for their own protection. Many cell doors didn’t even lock, which forced detainees to create makeshift barricades for their own safety. You can read the full letter here. What does the city want? The city is asking for a temporary restraining order, preliminary injunction and permanent injunction prohibiting CoreCivic from housing any detainees in its Leavenworth facility without applying for and obtaining a SUP in accordance with city regulations. "The City is likely to suffer irreparable, irreversible, direct, and intangible harms to the health, safety, comfort, economic development, and property values of Leavenworth citizens and businesses," the lawsuit states. The city says in the lawsuit that it's been advised CoreCivic may begin moving detainees to the detention center in May—but fears that CoreCivic may move sooner. ...read more read less