News & Commentary

In 2021, the American Civil Liberties Union urged the White House to close the facility, which was later achieved when then-President Joe Biden issued an executive order ending any contracts with private prisons.

Esmie Tseng, spokeswoman for ACLU of Kansas, said the Thursday press conference was a way to keep the issue in front of the Leavenworth community. Although organizations put the event together, she said it’s important that the city be the focus.

The constitutional challenge brought by the American Civil Liberties Union and other organizations came to an end once their clients accused of capital crimes no longer faced the ultimate punishment.

The American Civil Liberties Union and other national legal groups have awaited the ruling since October, when they filed legal challenges in Kansas against the death penalty and a practice called death qualification.

Advocates for weed, like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and opponents of legalization, like the Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI) and the Kansas Office of the Attorney General, continue to clash regularly in Kansas, arguing their cases for why marijuana should be given the green light

It’s been said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Apparently, private prison company CoreCivic never got the memo.

The American Civil Liberties Union and federal public defenders sent a letter to the White House documenting their concerns. Beatings and stabbings were rampant, suicides were prevalent, sexual assault reports were discouraged, and the company failed to report the death of an inmate for six days.

CoreCivic, the second largest private prison company in America, is seeking to reactivate a shuttered facility in Leavenworth as a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center.

“What their actions say is that CoreCivic’s decision makers consider the SUP process and this city disposable,” said Esmie Tseng, communications director for the ACLU of Kansas.