Restraining order prevents Kansas ICE prison from opening. So why is it hiring?
A judge’s repeated rulings blocking CoreCivic from reopening as an immigrant detention center on the outskirts of Leavenworth haven’t stopped the company from hiring workers.
The for-profit prison chain has hired about 130 people so far, including 75 detention officers, spokesperson Ryan Gustin told The Star Tuesday.
That’s nearly half of the 300 positions CoreCivic intends to fill in Leavenworth. According to Gustin, more than 2,300 applicants have sought a job at the rebranded Midwest Regional Reception Center, which the company plans to operate under a contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.
But as CoreCivic’s legal battle with the city of Leavenworth stretches into its fifth month, there’s still no timeline for when the detention center might come online.
CoreCivic has asked the Kansas Court of Appeals to reverse Leavenworth District Court Judge John J. Bryant’s temporary restraining order, which prohibits anyone from being detained in the concrete and razor wire fortress on the basis that the city will likely prevail in the zoning dispute. The company says the prison can accommodate more than 1,000 detainees.
“They can hire whoever they want, however many people they want,” Leavenworth City Manager Scott Peterson said in an interview Tuesday. “The trigger for the use is detaining people, so as long as they don’t detain anybody, they can hire as many people as they like.”
Starting wages for employees at the Leavenworth facility are $28.25 an hour plus benefits, Gustin said, adding that new hires are paid during and after their training period, even as the prison cells remain empty.
“Our current MRRC staff members continue to assist with preparing the facility to serve our government partners at ICE,” Gusin said in an email. “Once they have completed their initial training, many of our staff have had the opportunity to receive additional training at operational facilities throughout our system. We’ve also been able to offer specialty and reality-based training and drills.”
CoreCivic operates 14 immigrant detention centers around the country, housing approximately 10,000 detainees with cases working their way through immigration court, Gustin told The Star in March.
The Star requested a copy of the contract between CoreCivic and ICE for the Leavenworth facility in May. So far, no contract has been furnished.
‘False pretense’
Marcia Levering worked as a prison guard at the facility in 2021 before it was shuttered under an executive order from then-President Joe Biden.
She said she believes CoreCivic recruiters reached out to her because of her military background.
“We were hired under the false pretense of twelve-hour shifts three days a week,” Levering said.
In practice, chronic understaffing precipitated extra shifts and dangerous conditions in the facility, including rampant violence and weapons stockpiling, court records show.
Levering’s tenure as a guard ended abruptly when she was stabbed four times by an inmate — once in the ear, once in the right arm and twice in the abdomen, she said. She told the Leavenworth City Commission this spring that she has undergone 16 surgeries since the brutal attack.
“I was good to the inmates. I had a great rapport established with them. I treated them with dignity and respect, as I think you should … I did all the right things and now I’m down and out,” said Levering, who now walks with a cane and has been unable to work since 2021.
She’s still struggling to reclaim her life, she said.
In court filings and hearings, CoreCivic has asserted that the staffing shortages and rampant violence that plagued the detention facility before its closure would not be repeated if courts allow it to reopen.
Levering had her own message for job seekers considering applying to work for CoreCivic.
“Do not work for them,” she said. “It is dangerous and you run the risk of losing your life every single day.”
