ACLU FOIA Litigation Reveals ICE Actively Considering Proposals to Expand Immigration Detention in Kansas

New information from nationwide revealed as President-elect Donald Trump doubles down on promise to enact mass deportations on day one

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, December 19, 2024

CONTACT: [email protected]

LEAVENWORTH, KAN. – New documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union reveal that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is actively considering proposals to expand its immigration detention capacity in Kansas as well as California, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, and Washington state. The records, obtained as a result of a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by the ACLU in September 2024, disclose that private prison corporations, as well as other corporate entities that provide services to build temporary facilities, monitor compliance, and staff facilities submitted proposals for expanded immigration detention in response to ICE’s contract requests. The discovery comes just weeks after the ACLU received its first tranche of FOIA documents revealing that ICE is considering expanding detention in three different facilities in New Jersey.

“An expanded ICE presence in our state will deeply harm our fellow Kansans,” said Micah Kubic, Executive Director of the ACLU of Kansas. “The community of Leavenworth has made it clear multiple times that ICE and CoreCivic are not welcome to wreak the havoc of federal immigration enforcement here—and local and state leaders do not have to give in.”

The ACLU has called on state and local officials throughout the country to build a firewall for freedom that would protect fundamental rights from likely attacks during the second Trump administration. The ACLU of Kansas has recently rolled out its Firewall for Freedom, which seeks to win proactive civil liberties protections on the local level and empower local communities to exercise their influence and power.

The FOIA documents reveal that GEO Group, Inc., CoreCivic, and the MTC Corporation submitted contract proposals to Requests for Information to expand detention capacity and facilities, several of which have a lengthy history of abusive conditions. The records show that in Kansas, there is a proposal from CoreCivic.

• Midwest Regional Reception Center in Leavenworth, KS – formerly known as Leavenworth Detention Center – which has a track record of abusive conditions, which led the federal government to end its contract with the facility in 2021.

• South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, TX – a facility where children as young as 19 months have died as a result poor medical care.

• Nevada Southern Detention Center in Pahrump, NV – which has been subject to a federal invesitgation for medical negligence, racial discrimination, and verbal abuse of detained people

• Cibola County Correctional Center in Milan, NM—which has been the site of numerous deaths in recent years, with incidents of neglect, abuse, and lack of medical care.

• Torrance County Detention Facility in Estancia, NM – which DHS’s Office of Inspector General cited in 2022 due to poor conditions.

• California City Correctional Center in California City, CA –which was previously used as a California Department of Corrections prison until March 2024.

ICE also withheld a number of documents in its FOIA disclosure, obscuring the names of the specific facilities. However, the documents produced also indicate that its detention facilities under consideration include [insert relevant info from the list below]

• Lea County Correctional Facility in Hobbs, NM (Proposal by GEO Group, Inc. for the El Paso Field Office)

• Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma, WA (Proposal by GEO Group, Inc. for the Seattle Field Office)

• Golden State Annex in McFarland, CA (Proposal by GEO Group, Inc. for the San Francisco Field Office)

• Mesa Verde Detention Center in Bakersfield, CA (Proposal by GEO Group, Inc. for the San Francisco Field Office)

• MTC facility in South Texas, which may include the Willacy County Jail in Raymondville, TX (Proposal by MTC for the Harlingen Field Office)

• GEO Group, Inc. facility in Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Missouri, Kentucky, or Kansas (Proposal by GEO Group, Inc. for Chicago Field Office)

• GEO Group, Inc. facility in South Texas, which may include the Brooks County Detention Center, Falfurrias, TX; Coastal Bend Detention Center, Robstown, TX; or the East Hidalgo Detention Center in LaVilla, TX (Proposal by GEO Group, Inc. For the Harlingen Field Office)

Other corporate entities, including Kastel Enterprises, LLC, and Active Deployment Systems, which provide services to build temporary facilities, and Sabot Consulting, which provides compliance monitoring and detention staffing services, also submitted responses to ICE’s request.

As the ACLU has previously documented, the federal government’s immigration detention system overwhelmingly relies on private prison corporations. Private prison corporations, like the GEO Group, CoreCivic, LaSalle Corrections, and the Management Training Corporation have pocketed billions from ICE detention contracts over the past two decades.

The FOIA records are available here.

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About the ACLU of Kansas: The ACLU of Kansas is the statewide affiliate of the national American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU of Kansas is dedicated to preserving and advancing the civil rights and legal freedoms guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Bill of Rights. For more information, visit our website at www.aclukansas.org.