TOPEKA — CoreCivic is looking at all options, including the possibility of applying for a special use permit from the city of Leavenworth, a company spokesman said Monday.
After a federal judge handed the private prison company a loss in court last week, the company is reassessing its stance.
“We maintain our legal position that we should be able to lawfully operate our facility, as we’ve done for almost 30 years,” said CoreCivic spokesman Ryan Gustin. “That said, we are assessing all available avenues to find a successful conclusion to this matter for us, our stakeholders and our community, up to and including filing for the Special Use Permit.”
U.S. District Judge Toby Crouse on Tuesday dismissed CoreCivic’s request to overturn an injunction that blocks the company from housing immigration detainees immediately in its Leavenworth prison.
Now, the company is considering what Leavenworth officials asked it to do in the first place — go through the city’s development process to get a special use permit.
CoreCivic has been fighting since spring with Leavenworth to reopen its private prison without going through the city’s permitting process. But the city, citing numerous issues with the way the prison was run before it closed in 2021, said CoreCivic must file for the permit.
It’s been a winding road to get to a place of possible resolution.
When Leavenworth officials told CoreCivic the company had to go through the permit process, the two ended up in court in May. There, a judge barred CoreCivic from taking immigration detainees and fulfilling its U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement contract while state-level litigation was ongoing.
The federal government jumped into the fight in September, backing CoreCivic’s contention that Leavenworth is violating the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution and accusing Leavenworth of “aggressive and unlawful interference.” That clause sets federal laws as supreme over state laws.
Crouse’s decision to deny CoreCivic’s request to overturn the injunction apparently was a turning point in the case.
“We’re pleased with the results,” said Leavenworth city manager Scott Peterson. “It went the way we certainly hoped it would.”
CoreCivic has said all along that it would “suffer irreparable injury” if the injunction were denied.
The company in September signed a contract with ICE valued at $60 million a year to house migrant detainees at its Leavenworth facility, but the agreement doesn’t take effect until legal issues are resolved.
The new contract is for a fixed monthly amount and then additional payments based on the number of detainees held in the facility, which can house up to 1,033. It will not begin until the temporary injunction put in place by a Kansas district court is “no longer enforceable,” a CoreCivic news release said.
Peterson said the city is ready to continue work on the special permitting process with CoreCivic should the company decide to apply. CoreCivic had been four months into the process when it decided to withdraw, he said.
“We just want them to apply for a special use permit so that we can put together some standards that both parties agree to that we can hold CoreCivic to, which was something we thought we had agreed to prior to this whole situation,” Peterson said.
