If Leavenworth OK’s CoreCivic ICE prison, it will hurt every Kansan | Opinion

After over a year of bickering between Leavenworth and CoreCivic over reopening their private prison for Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees, the City Commission is on the verge of issuing a permit on March 10. Will the commissioners remember the values upon which this state was founded, or will they shamefully retreat into our worst tendencies as Americans?

The commissioners might not want to be part of a national debate. They want to keep it local, but they can’t. Their decision will not impact only Leavenworth residents. This facility would house undocumented detainees from across Kansas and the region. Yet they are not listening to the pleas of families across the Midwest, who are saying this prison will lock up their neighbors and loved ones.

I work as the campaign manager for New Frontiers, a project of the nonpartisan nonprofit Loud Light. I organize in the southwest Kansas communities of Dodge City, Garden City, and Liberal. We also have organizers based in the Kansas City metropolitan area, Wichita, Topeka and Lawrence. We have thousands of supporters, volunteers and activists across the state organizing their communities to build the futures they deserve.

I was born and raised in Dodge City, a community I love and am proud of. Many of us there are immigrants or first-generation Americans, but we’re all Kansans and connected through our ties to this land. These ties mean that the decision made by members of the Leavenworth City Commission will impact folks way outside their city limits. There are many reasons that decision needs to be a no.

First, when leaders of a company shows you who they are, believe their actions, not their words. Based on its profit-driven track record, CoreCivic cannot be trusted to ensure the safety of its staff and detainees. Regardless of whatever promises it has made about improving conditions and treating employees with the dignity they deserve, what we have to believe is its actual record. Across its facilities nationwide, CoreCivic has a clear pattern of understaffing to the point of creating dangerous conditions for everyone involved. As a profit-driven institution, CoreCivic has incentive to ignore and conceal poor conditions to benefit its bottom line.

Second, we can’t separate this facility from the national conversation and statewide economic impacts. Southwest Kansas has benefited greatly from immigration into our communities, and bucked the trend of rural decline. Yet, CoreCivic’s rush to open would enable ICE to extend this administration’s violent and unconstitutional removal campaign there.

Third, the economic threat that comes with denying a permit to CoreCivic does not overcome the moral arguments and suffering that this prison would bring. Standing strong in our moral beliefs, even if not politically popular, is what we have in common as Kansans. I know doing the right thing isn’t always the most politically popular, but we must be guided by values core to us as individuals. From John Brown’s blessed fight against slavery to Dwight D. Eisenhower’s mobilization of the National Guard to protect the Little Rock Nine, Kansans have stood for freedom and dignity since our state’s founding. I ask the Leavenworth City Commission to embody that same spirit to defend the dignity of every human being

Last, a great fear is that if denied a permit, CoreCivic will lead a protracted legal appeal of the decision, which could bankrupt the city of Leavenworth. However, such a decision by coercion would lead Leavenworth leaders to face moral bankruptcy if they allow CoreCivic’s ICE detention facility to open its doors.

I ask them: Which can you live with?

Alejandro Rangel-Lopez is campaign manager in southwest Kansas for New Frontiers, a project of the nonpartisan 501(c)(3) nonprofit Loud Light.