2 arrested in tense protest over ICE detention center in Leavenworth: ‘Shame’
Police arrested at least two protesters at the tense Leavenworth City Commission meeting Tuesday in which leaders gave permission for private prison company CoreCivic to reopen its Kansas facility as an immigration detention center.
Nineteen-year-old Jalen Brown and 33-year-old Adam Meysing were taken to the county jail and held on unspecified charges at $250 cash bail, sheriff’s office records show. They were both released after the meeting ended, when fellow protesters showed up at the jail and raised money to post their bail.
One person interrupted the commissioner’s meeting by standing and shouting, “It will be your fault when people die in this facility.”
As officers pulled him from his row, the protester yelled, “Detention without due process is a concentration camp.”
Only a fraction of the more than 370 protesters were allowed inside Leavenworth City Hall, where opponents of the facility packed the commission chamber and the lobby overflow room.
Hundreds of anti-ICE protesters, from teenagers to seniors, gathered on the building’s lawn, next to a replica of the Statue of Liberty. Volunteers distributed peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, along with “No CoreCivic” stickers, which people plastered to their chests.
Demonstrators travelled from Lawrence, Johnson County and Kansas City, as they said the ICE facility would affect the whole region.
One sign referenced Kansas’ history: “Once a free state, always a free state. No ICE.”
The large police presence was noticeable even before the commissioners’ meeting, when 14 city police officers and sheriff’s deputies stood outside.
Outside, a safety vest-clad organizer asked protesters spilling on the road to move to the sidewalk. It was better he asked them to move than an officer, the organizer said.
The dozens of demonstrators who signed up to give their public comment had to wait outside. They huddled around meeting livestreams on their phones and listened for bullhorn announcements from protest organizers to know when to enter the building.
The sun had fallen and lightning flashed in the east by the time the vote happened.
Chants of “shame” broke out after commissioners voted to reopen the fifth correctional facility in Leavenworth County. Some demonstrators linked hands while others yelled in the faces of officers.
One woman crumpled into the arms of her fellow protesters.
Gwyndolyn Jones said she felt hopeless.
“If the city is not going to listen to its own residents, what other choice do we have?” the fourth-generation Leavenworth resident said.
In her John Brown shirt and Ruth Bader Ginsburg pin, Jones committed to keep protesting.
Even, she said, “if I need to build a secret room in the basement where a bunch of people can live when they need to.”
