The Questions Leavenworth Asked Then Are the Same Questions California Is Asking Now
A court-appointed monitor’s findings at a California ICE detention center are renewing scrutiny of private detention facilities nationwide, including Kansas’ recently reopened CoreCivic prison.
By Jefferu Fogg
LEAVENWORTH, Kan. — When Leavenworth city commissioners voted 4-1 in March to approve a special use permit allowing CoreCivic to reopen its former prison as the Midwest Regional Reception Center for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees, supporters and opponents agreed on one thing: the decision carried enormous consequences.
For city leaders, the issue centered largely on protecting taxpayers after a year-long legal battle with the Nashville-based private prison company. Opponents, however, repeatedly warned that once detainees began arriving, meaningful oversight could become far more difficult.
Much of the year-long debate surrounding CoreCivic’s effort to reopen the facility was previously reported by the Kansas Reflector, which documented months of public hearings, legal challenges, testimony from former employees, and concerns raised by immigrant-rights advocates and Leavenworth residents.
Five months later, a court-appointed external monitor’s report from another CoreCivic-operated ICE detention center is renewing attention to many of those same concerns.
A Court-Ordered Investigation
Last week, the American Civil Liberties Union highlighted the findings of an independent court-appointed monitor who evaluated medical care at the California City Detention Facility, an ICE detention center operated by CoreCivic in California.
The 52-page report was prepared by physician Dr. Muthusamy Anandkumar after reviewing 141 medical records, interviewing 40 detainees and numerous staff members, conducting a three-day on-site inspection, and reviewing thousands of pages of facility documents. The investigation was ordered by a federal judge after detainees challenged medical conditions at the facility.
The monitor’s conclusion was unequivocal.
“The facility lacks a reliable system to consistently provide adequate health care, placing individuals at serious risk of both immediate and long-term harm.”
Among the report’s findings were determinations of non-compliance in every major category the court required the monitor to evaluate, including:
- Adequate medical staffing
- Intake medical screening
- Emergency medical care
- Mental health treatment
- Chronic disease management
- Dental care
- Access to prescribed medications
- Specialist referrals
- Sick-call response systems
The report concluded that staffing shortages, delayed treatment, inadequate intake procedures, inconsistent emergency care, poor continuity of medical treatment, and insufficient oversight created an unsafe healthcare environment for detainees.
Familiar Concerns
For many who opposed reopening Leavenworth’s detention center, those findings sound remarkably familiar.
Throughout more than a year of city meetings, residents repeatedly questioned whether the city—or even ICE itself—would be able to identify problems before detainees suffered harm.
As previously reported by the Kansas Reflector, former CoreCivic correctional officer William Rogers urged commissioners to reject the permit, arguing he had witnessed serious deficiencies while employed at the Leavenworth facility before it closed in 2021.
Rogers described one incident in which he said an inmate developed life-threatening sepsis after repeated requests for treatment of an infected tooth allegedly went unanswered. He compared that experience to the more recent death of asylum seeker Emmanuel Damas at another CoreCivic-operated detention facility in Arizona, where advocates alleged an untreated dental infection led to sepsis.
Whether those incidents reflect broader systemic problems has been the subject of significant public debate, but they became central to many residents’ arguments that reopening the prison without strong oversight carried substantial risks.
Others warned that once the prison reopened under a federal contract, enforcing permit conditions could prove considerably more difficult than negotiating them beforehand.
A Difficult Decision
Commissioners who ultimately approved the permit consistently emphasized that their decision was based less on immigration policy than on financial realities and legal risk.
Commissioner Joe Wilson described the process as “agonizing,” saying the city had to weigh its fiduciary responsibility against the possibility of prolonged litigation and significant financial exposure.
Commissioner Holly Pittman similarly stated that denying the permit could expose taxpayers to substantial legal liability after multiple court rulings during the dispute.
Mayor Nancy Bauder argued the city was in a stronger position than when the prison previously operated because CoreCivic now holds a special use permit that includes enforceable operating conditions and gives the city authority to revoke the permit for violations.
Commissioner Rebecca Hollister remained unconvinced.
Casting the lone dissenting vote, she questioned whether the permit would provide meaningful accountability in practice and said approving it required a level of trust in CoreCivic that she did not yet possess, particularly given controversies involving other facilities.
What About Leavenworth?
According to recent ICE detention statistics, the Leavenworth facility currently houses approximately 244 immigration detainees, including about 190 men and 54 to 55 women.
ICE data further indicates that approximately 182 detainees have no criminal convictions, while 62 have criminal histories.
Those figures underscore an important distinction.
Immigration detainees are generally held in civil detention, not criminal incarceration. Many are awaiting immigration proceedings, asylum determinations, or removal hearings rather than serving criminal sentences.
At this time, there is no publicly available evidence demonstrating that the Leavenworth facility is experiencing the same systemic medical deficiencies identified in California.
That distinction is important.
The California findings stem from an independent court-appointed investigation conducted under federal judicial oversight following litigation specific to that facility. They should not be interpreted as proof that identical conditions currently exist in Kansas.
At the same time, critics argue the report demonstrates how significant problems can develop inside detention facilities before the public becomes fully aware of them.
Unlike California City—which is now operating under federal court supervision and independent medical monitoring—Leavenworth currently has no comparable court-appointed oversight reviewing day-to-day medical operations.
Supporters of the facility note that ICE conducts inspections and maintains contractual oversight requirements. Critics question whether those mechanisms alone are sufficient to detect systemic deficiencies before they become serious.
The Question That Remains
The concerns raised during Leavenworth’s permitting battle were never solely about immigration policy.
They were about transparency.
They were about accountability.
And they were about whether people held in civil detention—regardless of why they are there—would receive constitutionally adequate medical care.
There is currently no public evidence that Leavenworth’s CoreCivic facility is experiencing the same problems documented in California.
But the court-appointed monitor’s findings illustrate why many Leavenworth residents spent more than a year asking difficult questions before the prison reopened.
Whether Kansas ever faces similar challenges may ultimately depend on something many opponents argued was essential from the beginning: independent, transparent oversight capable of identifying problems before they become tragedies—not after.
Editor’s Note: Background regarding Leavenworth’s special use permit proceedings and public hearings was informed by previous reporting from the Kansas Reflector. Information regarding the California City Detention Facility is based on the independent report of a court-appointed external monitor filed in federal court and public materials released by the American Civil Liberties Union. The California findings are specific to that facility and should not be interpreted as evidence that identical conditions currently exist at the Leavenworth detention center.
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