Private prisons see boom as Trump steps up migrant crackdown

In locking up migrants - there is money to be made.

The most aggressive immigration enforcement regime in recent US history has the private detention industry seeing dollar signs and the race is on to ramp up migrant detention capacity by opening new centers, or reopening closed ones.

In the state of Kansas, the Leavenworth Midwest Regional Reception Center has become a test case.

The facility shut down in 2021 amid allegations of abuse is now at the center of a local battle unfolding against a national agenda. Leavenworth is a prison town.

That is to say prisons are a key part of the city's identity - a mix of federal, state and military correctional facilities are hosted here or very nearby.

Like the famous United States Penitentiary Leavenworth, which counted Al Capone as one its notable inmates.

But in a place where detention facilities are a fixture, there is one that has been a source of division for the community.

Belonging to the private prison operator CoreCivic, it has been shut since 2021. Before it closed however, it was plagued by allegations of abuse and mismanagement.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas even wrote a letter to the White House warning that CoreCivic Leavenworth was dangerously understaffed, poorly managed, and incapable of safely housing its detainee population.

Stabbings, suicides, and even homicide have occurred with alarming frequency in the last year, with weapons, drugs, and other contraband now a common occurrence.

But the much-scrutinized facility could soon resume business - if it irons out some bureaucratic snags.

Millions of dollars to detain migrants

This is the Midwest Regional Reception Center, a previously shuttered CoreCivic facility that the company is trying to reopen.

But a permitting problem led to it being unable to do so, at least for now.

CoreCivic won a contract from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE, to detain migrants here for 4.2 million dollars per month.

But the city of Leavenworth has now sued CoreCivic, saying it tried to restart operations without getting a special use permit required under city rules.

A Kansas district court has blocked CoreCivic from housing detainees without the permit, a requirement that the company is contesting.

Bottomline, for now, is that CoreCivic can earn money from the 1,033 beds it has in the facility just yet. But the for- and-opposed camps have formed in Leavenworth, and perhaps unsurprisingly they fall along partisan lines.

Pat Proctor is a Republican Kansas State Representative, and supports reopening the facility - also for economic reasons.

But then there is the other side.

Mike Trapp with the CoreCivic Opposition Group, argues that the increased effort to create more supply of detention space will in turn create unsustainable demand. He organizes protests against the facility's reopening.

While the debate in Leavenworth has been brought to a stalemate, a nationwide argument is ongoing - one that is not just about economic benefits and opportunity costs, but whether the social price of profiting from migrant detention is a price worth paying.