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Daily Mail
20-07-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
ICE raid sparks pandemonium as cops batter agitators blocking major bridge
Dozens were arrested, and one cop was placed on administrative duty after violent clashes broke out during an anti-ICE protest on an interstate bridge. Demonstrators protesting the immigration detention of former hospital chaplain Ayman Soliman blocked the Roebling Bridge that carries traffic between Ohio and Kentucky on Thursday. Approximately 100 people crossed the bridge from the Ohio side, but fights broke out after protesters were met by nearly 50 officers from Covington, Kentucky, reported Shocking footage showed one officer punching a protester several times as police wrestled him to the ground. Covington Police Chief Brian Valenti claimed the protester, Brandon Hill, had tried to disarm an officer carrying a pepper ball gun. However, Hill, who was left covered in scratches and bruises and with his arm in a sling, insisted he was just trying not to get shot. 'It's all very traumatic, and I'm still trying to recover from this, honestly,' Hill told WCPO. 'If anything like that happened, it's because a random gun was pointed in my face.' Covington police placed the officer who arrested Hill on administrative duty with pay while the investigation is ongoing. Body camera footage from the unidentified officer showed him chasing Hill as he was running along the sidewalk before the cop grabbed him near the ledge of the bridge. Hill can be heard on other officers' body cams yelling 'ow' and 'stop' as he got hit in the head. In the officer's use-of-force report, he wrote: '[Hill] continued to physically resist, actively concealing his hands... fearing that [he] might be attempting to access a weapon, and that the surrounding crowd opposed a threat to my safety, I delivered additional closed fist strikes.' Another video from the protest showed people wearing neon-colored vests pushing against a black SUV on the bridge. Police arrested 15 people during the protest, including two journalists, after police said they had refused to comply with orders to disperse. Covington police said in a statement that officers who initially attempted to talk with the protest's organizer were threatened and met with hostility. 'While the department supports the public's right to peaceful assembly and expression, threatening officers and blocking critical infrastructure, such as a major bridge, presents a danger to all involved,' the police said. Among the charges filed against those arrested were rioting, failing to disperse, obstructing emergency responders, criminal mischief and disorderly conduct. Reporter Madeline Fening and photo intern Lucas Griffith were charged with felony rioting and several other charges, said Ashley Moor, the editor in chief of CityBeat. A judge on Friday set a $2,500 bond for each of those arrested. The arrests happened during a protest in support of Ayman Soliman, 51, an Egyptian immigrant who worked as a chaplain at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. He was detained last week after he showed up for a routine check-in with ICE officials at their office near Cincinnati. According to his lawyers, he was granted asylum in 2018 based on past persecution for his work as a journalist in Egypt during the Arab Spring uprising. His lawyers say he was jailed and tortured for reporting on the intense political conflict.
Al Arabiya
16-07-2025
- Al Arabiya
Former us marine corps reservist charged in texas immigration detention center shooting
A former US Marine Corps reservist has been arrested and charged with attempted murder in connection with an attack at a Texas immigration detention center in which a police officer was shot in the neck, federal prosecutors said Tuesday. Benjamin Hanil Song, 32, is the latest person charged in the Fourth of July assault in which attackers dressed in black military-style clothing opened fire outside the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, southwest of Dallas, according to the US Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Texas. Song, from Dallas, was arrested after a weeklong search and has been charged with three counts of attempted murder of federal agents and three counts of discharging a firearm in relation to a crime of violence, the office said in a statement. He is accused of purchasing four of the guns linked to the attack, it said. US District Court records do not list names of attorneys representing Song or scheduled court appearances. US Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Texas did not immediately respond to an email asking whether Song has an attorney. The officer wounded in the attack has since been released from the hospital. Ten people, most of them from the Dallas-Fort Worth area, have previously been charged with attempted murder of a federal officer and discharging a firearm in relation to a crime of violence. Another person has been charged with obstruction of justice for concealing evidence, while two others were charged with accessory after the fact for allegedly helping Song get away. If convicted, most of the defendants could face up to life imprisonment, while those charged with obstruction of justice and accessory after the fact would face lesser penalties if convicted, according to federal prosecutors. The shooting took place as President Donald Trump's administration ramps up deportations. The attackers initially set off fireworks and spray-painted vehicles and a guard structure including the words 'Ice Pig,' according to a criminal complaint. This was designed to lure correctional officers outside the facility, according to US Attorney's Office. Correctional officers called 911 and an Alvarado police officer responded and someone in the woods opened fire. Another person across the street fired 20 to 30 rounds at correctional officers who were unarmed after they walked out of the facility, according to the office's statement. After the group fled, sheriff's deputies stopped seven people about 300 yards (275 meters) from where the officer was shot, according to a criminal complaint. They were dressed in black military-style clothing, some had on body armor, some were covered in mud, some were armed, and some had radios, the complaint said. A sheriff's office detective also stopped a van leaving the area and found two AR-style rifles and a pistol along with ballistic-style vests and a helmet, the complaint said. The driver, the only person in the van, said he had been at the detention center. He said he had met some people online and drove some of them to the detention center from Dallas to make some noise, according to the complaint. Song's cellphones location data shows it was near the detention center from about 11:30 p.m. on July 4 and throughout the day on July 5, according to a criminal complaint. 'Though Song escaped by hiding overnight after the attack, we were confident he would not remain hidden for long,' Acting United States Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Nancy E. Larson said in a statement. 'The fourteen individuals who planned and participated in these heinous acts will be prosecuted and we expect justice will be swift.'
Yahoo
13-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Mentally ill, detained and alone. Trump budget cuts force immigrants to fight in solitude
The message came over a jail video call between an attorney and her client locked away in immigration detention. In an echoey windowless room she said: "I'm sorry, I can't be your lawyer anymore." Sophie Woodruff had to tell him twice. Her client could hear the words she was saying, but he didn't understand them. Grevil Paz Cartagena is mentally ill and legally incompetent. He has been in detention for nearly 600 days. Woodruff was the only person the 31-year-old Honduran immigrant could talk to. That was aside from the voices in his head. She had promised not to abandon him, but the Trump administration quietly canceled a $12 million annual contract on April 25. Since 2013, it had paid private attorneys to represent detainees deemed mentally or cognitively incompetent and unable to represent themselves. Those attorneys filed a federal lawsuit in May challenging the abrupt change. In an April memo reviewed by USA TODAY, Department of Justice contractors crossed out any reference to 'nationwide' protections for detained noncitizens with serious mental disorders. By law, detainees with severe disabilities are still supposed to be given a fair hearing where they can present evidence and cross-examine witnesses. But now they're caught up in the administration's zest to ramp up removals under the auspices of saving taxpayers money. That means 289 immigrants like Paz Cartagena facing removal around the country are suddenly adrift. Any newly detained immigrants deemed incompetent will not be afforded attorneys. In a legal twist, hundreds of other mentally incompetent detainees in three states − Arizona, California and Washington − are still offered attorneys due to a previous court ruling. The rest are left to fend for themselves. 'So, are you still going to be there in court?' a still-confused Paz Cartagena asked Woodruff before hanging up the video call. Now formally withdrawn from the case, Woodruff says she's struggling to fully detach. 'Personally, it's devastating,' Woodruff said. 'I can't put this any clearer. If they deport him, he will die. And that's on my spirit.' Immigration attorneys told USA TODAY they face an impossible choice: Continue working for free or cut ties with their most vulnerable clients they pledged to defend. Six attorneys enrolled in the program spoke about the sudden end to the funding. They facilitated interviews behind the detention center doors with detainees with a variety of mental health challenges. With the help of intermediaries and advocates, all but one of the detainees decided to remain anonymous for fear of impacting their cases. Only Paz Cartagena is identified by name. The Department of Justice, which administers the program, declined to answer questions about the program's past or future, citing pending litigation challenging the cut. National and local staff for the immigration court in Paz Cartagena's case said immigration judges are barred from speaking about it. While in detention, Paz Cartagena's anxiety waxes and wanes. Sleepless nights torment him. If it's bad, he'll bang his head against the cinderblock wall until a concussion sets in. The pain numbs him. "The voices try to convince me to hurt myself,' he said in Spanish. He lies awake until the 9 a.m. headcount at his facility. He says he feels lost and only relies on the voice that talks to him. That was until Woodruff flew into town April 8. When his now-former attorney arrived from New Orleans to the Aurora, Colorado, detention center to meet Paz Cartagena, 'he was really truly alone, and struggling,' she said. The pair bonded over their mutual love of tattoos and reggaeton music. They listen to the same top artists: Wisin & Yandel, Daddy Yankee and, of course, Bad Bunny. After an hour, the two hugged and parted. 'Thank you for coming. I trust you, and I can tell you're going to help,' Paz Cartagena told her. Woodruff helped him compile an asylum claim. Paz Cartagena identifies as bisexual. He said he was raped by a police officer back home before crossing into the United States. Going back to Honduras as a member of the LGBTQ+ community would mean ostracization, violence or death. The U.S. Department of State warns that the Honduran police and government there 'incite, perpetrate, condone or tolerate' such violence against LGBTQ+ individuals. Paz Cartagena's mother and siblings are back in Honduras. He has some relatives in the United States, but they are not in touch. In a recent phone interview with USA TODAY, Paz Cartagena spoke in circles, confused about the timeline of his life and what would happen next. 'Someone is here with me, in my head,' Paz Cartagena said. 'The voice writes and helps me write music.' Days later, in another interview, Paz Cartagena was lucid and understood his quandary. He recalled the run-in with local police in Colorado. He had been self-medicating with recreational drugs and was confused when plainclothes officers approached him. That set off the cascade of events leading to his detention. Records show he has not been convicted of a crime in the United States. But immigration officials said he is in the country illegally and subject to deportation. The mental health of detainees often goes unnoticed throughout immigration proceedings. It's usually up to an immigration judge or attorney to raise concerns and order an evaluation. But given the rapid-fire deportation regime, those timelines can be compressed or sometimes nonexistent. That was the case for Nyo Myint, one of the eight men sent on a disputed flight to South Sudan that was recently upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court. The men were diverted to a U.S. Air Force base in Djibouti, where they remain. Court records obtained by USA TODAY show instead of being housed in jail pending trial on sexual assault charges, Myint lived at the Lincoln Regional Center, a psychiatric hospital. Psychologists there evaluated him and ruled him mentally incompetent on four separate occasions until November 2019. He entered a no contest plea in 2020 and was sentenced to 12 years in prison. He served a fraction of his time before being paroled in 2023 and taken into ICE custody and eventually removed. 'I did not learn about his previous competency issues,' Jonathan Ryan, Myint's Texas immigration attorney, recently told USA TODAY. 'I wish I had.' While hundreds of detainees face uncertainty, the organizations that were representing them are suing in federal court to have their funding restored. DOJ attorneys, however, argue that that suit isn't about ending a program but rather cutting a contract, which is within the scope of the government's rights. They have not signaled they will revamp the funding with other attorneys. Representatives from the Executive Office for Immigration Review cited the pending case and declined to answer questions about changes to the arrangement, known as the National Qualified Representative Program. Despite the alarm over an ethical bind, the DOJ points out that many attorneys in the program have said they'll continue offering their services after scrounging up other funding. That's the case for Yarima González Crespo, an attorney with the Pennsylvania Immigration Resource Center, who will continue aiding a 63-year-old with mental health challenges facing removal. 'I tried this alone,' the client, a Mexican grandmother, said on a video interview from detention. 'It was very hard, and the judge told me I couldn't do this by myself.' The woman said she was a green card holder and has lived in the country since 1979. Then a misdemeanor assault charge in 2020 upended her life. It wasn't until she landed on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement transfer flight in 2024 that she realized the gravity of the situation. 'I couldn't breathe, I was numb, petrified,' she said. 'I told them: 'No, I can't stay here, I've got my legal papers, I just got out of jail, I did my time.' I knew I would get sick again.' After eight months of detention, a judge recognized the woman's rapidly deteriorating mental state and assigned representation. Now on steady medication, the woman says she's busy sweeping and scrubbing the detention center for $10 a week. She uses the money exclusively to call her family – $2.50 for a three-minute call, $4 for video. The grandmother of 10 has been keeping her cooking skills sharp in detention, making due with limited ingredients for tamales and birria tacos. Being the eldest detainee with her black-framed glasses and graying hair, she said others call her Mamá. 'You have to make them with love, it's not any special seasoning, it's love,' she said. News of the changes to the attorney program trickled from the administration in a confusing mix of messages. No changes planned as of Jan. 24, then an email signaled a cut April 3, then a rapid reversal: Disregard the cut. And finally, the official notice from EOIR Acting Director Sirce Owen: As of April 25, the funding was cut 'for convenience.' No other justification for the changes has been delivered. Paul Schmidt, former immigration judge and chair of the Board of Immigration Appeals, called it another battle in the 'administration's all-out war on due process.' 'It's disheartening when we took a system that was created to implement best practices and now we're back to the worst way to do this,' Schmidt said. Despite the administration's aim to streamline and accelerate immigration judgments, the funding cut could backfire, said Dana Leigh Marks, a retired immigration judge. 'It's a travesty,' Marks said. 'It's cutting off your nose to spite your face. These are difficult cases that immigration judges know move faster with a qualified representative.' Marks said judges will be left to wade through immigrant stories for relevant legal elements and the lack of attorneys will create more opportunities for error. That could, in turn, lead to more appeals and slower judgments. For Paz Cartagena, the young Honduran facing removal, he's back on his own, writing songs and sketching art while he awaits his court date. His favorite song, "November Rain" by Guns N' Roses, plays in his head while he battles his depression and suicidal ideation. Woodruff, his former attorney, still keeps in touch via phone despite officially withdrawing from the case. She worries his mental health has only worsened as he faces a judge who signaled Paz Cartagena should be able to represent himself. 'I don't know what to tell the judge,' he said. 'I don't know what I am supposed to do.' On June 30, he'll plead his case alone in front of Immigration Judge Elizabeth McGrail. It could be the confused, quiet Paz Cartagena speaking, or the sharp version he feels on good days. Nick Penzenstadler is a reporter on USA TODAY's investigative team working on national projects. Tips or questions? You can contact him via e-mail npenz@ or on Signal at 720-507-5273. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Why mentally incompetent immigration detainees suddenly lost attorneys
The Independent
01-07-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
MAGA star skewered for gleefully promoting ‘official Alligator Alcatraz merch': ‘The banality of evil'
Benny Johnson sparked backlash across the political spectrum on Tuesday for the 'unnerving' clip the MAGA podcaster posted to social media in which he enthusiastically promoted the 'official Alligator Alcatraz merch' while asking his followers if they'd 'rock this drip.' Johnson, the pro-Trump provocateur and serial plagiarist who was also duped into producing content for a Russian propaganda operation, was on hand when Donald Trump visited the new immigration detention facility that is located in the Florida Everglades. Besides posting a series of video clips hyping up the migrant camp that will now be a centerpiece of the Trump administration's mass deportation program, the right-wing YouTuber tossed several Trump-friendly questions at the president throughout the tour of the facility. With the president already leaning into the 'concept' of alligators 'eating' escaped detainees on Tuesday, Johnson asked Trump about his previous suggestion in 2018 about putting crocodiles in the Rio Grande River to stop border crossings. 'Is this a dream come true for you, sir?' the right-wing YouTuber added. While Johnson also teed the president up with queries about 'communist Zohran Mamdani' and whether CNN needed to be prosecuted, he drew perhaps the most attention for showing off the merchandise the Florida Republican Party is currently peddling to promote the detention camp. 'The feds have greenlit Alligator Alcatraz — Florida's gator-guarded, python-patrolled prison for illegal aliens who thought they could game the system,' a fundraising email from the Florida GOP read this week. 'Surrounded by miles of swamp and bloodthirsty wildlife, this ain't no vacation spot. It's a one-way ticket to regret for criminals who'll wish they'd self-deported.' According to the party's storefront page on the Republican fundraising site WinRed, customers can purchase t-shirts, baseball caps and beer koozies emblazoned with the phrase 'Alligator Alcatraz' and images of the large reptiles patrolling a prison complex. 'Hi guys. I have just been handed official Alligator Alcatraz merch,' Johnson tweeted on Tuesday from outside the facility. 'I repeat, this prison has merch. Things are going insanely well.' In the clip Johnson shared online, the MAGA memester boasted that his new hat was 'provided to us by the state of Florida' with a broad smile across his face. While continuing to pose in his 'Alligator Alcatraz' baseball cap, Johnson concluded the short video with the following question: 'Would you rock this drip?' The far-right pundit cheerfully hawking 'prison merch' left a bad taste in many observers' mouths – and not just liberals and progressives. 'There's just something gross about this,' conservative YouTuber Brad Polumbo reacted. 'These are public policy issues with human life at stake. They should be handled with more seriousness than this, even if you support the efforts.' Drew Holden, the managing editor of conservative think tank American Compass, noted that 'there's something unnerving about this jubilation.' Anti-woke author Nancy Rommelmann, meanwhile, shared that 'this clip will be used in future documentaries about the delight people took in pushing 'the enemy' out of spaces they saw as rightly theirs' and likened it to Lebensraum – the concept that Nazis used to justify territorial expansion. Many other critics also invoked Nazi Germany and concentration camps while blasting Johnson's exuberant promotion of the detention facility's official clothing line. 'The banality of evil,' literature teacher Scott Barber tweeted, referencing Hannah Arendt's famed book on the trial of Adolf Eichmann, one of the key architects of the Holocaust. Arendt coined the phrase because Eichmann claimed he was merely 'doing his job' and carrying out orders, suggesting that evil is largely perpetrated when immoral acts become normalized over time. 'Begrudgingly, I must shout out 1940s Germany for realizing concentration camp merch would have been a bridge too far,' television writer Noah Garfinkel quipped. 'Showing off my free concentration camp merch. My soul is just out of frame, intact and not bound by dark blood rites to the eternal service of Moloch the Devourer,' Ciaramella snarked.
The Guardian
01-07-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
A private prison firm wants to detain immigrants in this Kansas town. Its residents are pushing back
It was a lovely May evening in Leavenworth, Kansas, but instead of strolling along the Missouri River or gardening, a group of locals sat on squeaky folding chairs at the public library to discuss their mission: how to stop a private prison behemoth from warehousing immigrants down the road. This was happening in a famously pro-prison town, home to one of the oldest federal penitentiaries, and where Donald Trump won more than 60% of the vote in 2024. Besides the military and the Veterans Affairs medical center, prisons are the largest employer in this community, 30 miles north-west of Kansas City. With federal immigration detention facilities around the country packed due to the Trump administration's mass deportation efforts, the private prison industry is experiencing a boom. Stock prices of companies like GEO Group and CoreCivic soared as they gained scores of contracts. But when CoreCivic applied earlier this year for a permit in Leavenworth to reopen a prison with a troubled history to hold immigration detainees, city officials balked. And local residents – including some former prison employees – pushed back. That evening at the library, the citizens waited to hear whether a federal judge would decide if Leavenworth had the right to tell CoreCivic to buzz off. Regardless of what happened in court, organizers of this 'teach-in' were preparing attendees for the next possible round of the fight. Over homemade chocolate chip cookies and sun tea, they talked about how to get letters published in the Leavenworth Times and reminded attendees to politely pester elected officials. Local organizer (and cookie baker) Rick Hammett suggested to the crowd that political and corporate interests had stirred fears of immigrants ahead of the 2024 election cycle to benefit private prisons. 'To be profitable, private prison firms must ensure that prisons are not only built but also filled,' Hammett said. 'Which is how you end up with a scare tactic over migrants to drum up a reason to put people in jail.' In early June, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement reported the most immigrant arrests in a single day in its history: more than 2,200 people. Ashley Hernandez, an organizer for the Sisters of Charityof Leavenworth, lamented that CoreCivic has portrayed those who oppose the Ice detention facility as 'out-of-town' agitators. But this room is full of locals, she noted. 'They're the outside organization.' The Sisters of Charity is a Catholic convent – they prefer the term 'community' – that has been in Leavenworth longer than the prisons – even before statehood. Part of the Sisters' mission is to 'advocate for justice and systemic change' for exploited and marginalized people, Hernandez later explained. The nuns 'understand the history of injustices that have gone on in that prison, and they've never been OK with that', she said. Leavenworth's landmarks hint at a progressive past that dates to at least the 1850s, when Kansas opposed slavery and fought for admission to the US as a free state. The effort's most radical proposal was the 'Leavenworth constitution' which asserted that 'all men are by nature equally free and independent'. Leavenworth's city hall has statues of Lady Liberty and Abraham Lincoln; a nearby park has a plaque for women's suffragist Susan B Anthony, who spent time here with her newspaper publisher brother. The landscape is dotted with little reminders that people who don't have power can always fight for it. Many locals remember what happened when CoreCivic previously ran the detention center, housing mostly pretrial detainees for the US marshals from 1992-2021. They recall guards who were permanently injured by prisoner attacks and understaffing that undermined security, according to a federal audit. Mike Trapp, a local writer and activist who reserved the room for the library teach-in, said he's seen some softening recently among his neighbors who were Trump voters. Even those who support the mass deportations 'are on our side in not trusting CoreCivic to do the right thing', he said. Scandals plagued the facility during its final years of operation – beatings, stabbings, suicides and alleged sexual assaults, according to court records. Leavenworth police said they were blocked at the gate from investigating crimes inside. The facility finally closed in 2021 as the Biden administration shifted away from private prison contracts. The city changed its ordinance since CoreCivic initially opened a prison here, just six miles south of the federal government's own massive medium-security penitentiary, which has been operating since 1903. The rules now require a new prison operator to seek a city permit. CoreCivic paid a fee and applied for a permit in February to reopen its facility, now called the Midwest Regional Reception Center. But the firm quickly reversed course as residents' opposition mounted. CoreCivic argued in court filings that because it retained employees in Leavenworth, it never really closed – and didn't need a permit to reopen the facility. City leaders responded by suing in federal court, and then state court, seeking to block CoreCivic from repopulating the facility. In filings, the city argued the company previously ran an 'absolute hell hole', and the infamous American prison town did not want this one. In an editorial in the Kansas Reflector, critics of reopening the prison fumed: 'CoreCivic has repeatedly shown that it is incapable of running a humane facility. Now, the company flouts city approval to move forward with an ICE center based on false promises.' Some in Leavenworth opposed the new facility because they feared undocumented immigrants could be released locally, leading CoreCivic to repeatedly promise that any agreement with Ice would strictly prohibit that. In early June, a state district judge sided with the city and issued a temporary injunction, saying the company needed a permit. David Waters, a lawyer for the city, said the case is about following the permitting process and not about 'immigration policy, writ large'. A week later, CoreCivic filed a motion asking the district court judge to reconsider, arguing that the city failed to prove reopening the facility would cause 'irreparable' future harm or that the company needed a permit. Leaders at CoreCivic have dismissed critics, saying the company has had more than 1,600 applicants for 300 jobs with a starting salary of $28.25 an hour, plus benefits. 'We maintain the position that our facility, which we've operated for almost 30 years, does not require a Special Use Permit to care for detainees in partnership with ICE,' said Ryan Gustin, senior director of public affairs, in an email. He touted the company's promises to Leavenworth: a one-time impact fee of $1m, a $250,000 annual fee and an additional $150,000 annual fee to the police department. This is in addition to the over $1m in annual property taxes CoreCivic already pays, Gustin said. The Reception Center originally expected 'residents' as of 1 June. The company has posted numerous photos of its warden handing out $10,000 checks to veteran's causes and the Salvation Army. In legal filings, CoreCivic argued that preventing the opening of its 1,000-plus bed facility would cost it more than $4m a month. In a federal financial disclosure filed in May, the company stated its letter agreement for the Leavenworth facility with Ice authorized payment up to nearly $23m for a six-month period 'while the parties work to negotiate and execute a long-term contract'. Gustin said most of the concerns about safety and security of the facility were 'concentrated in an 18-month period' over 30 years of operations and attributed staffing shortages to the Covid-19 pandemic and a tight labor market. 'As with any difficult situation, we sought to learn from it,' he said. When CoreCivic previously operated the Leavenworth detention center, Tina Shonk-Little was detained there for about 16 months for insurance fraud. She described for the crowd that night at the Leavenworth library how medical and dental care in the facility was scant. 'If you had a toothache, they just pulled it,' she said. Her smile bears the scars. She recoiled when Hammett cited public records showing CoreCivic's CEO earned more than $7m last year. Corporate leaders at CoreCivic and GEO Group gushed on recent earnings calls about the 'unprecedented opportunity' they're facing with Trump in office. Ads and text messages show CoreCivic is offering new guards $2,500 signing bonuses. Across the river in rural Missouri, cash-strapped sheriff's departments are signing up to hold Ice detainees in small jails for $110 per night, per head, and to transport them as far as Kansas City for $1.10 per mile. Emails obtained through public records requests show that about a week after Trump was elected, CoreCivic leadership began contacting Leavenworth city officials about reopening their facility there. 'They don't want to do better. They are in it for profit,' Shonk-Little said. 'They could give two shits about the people. The more people they have, the better off they are because it's more money in their pocket.' Shonk-Little expressed sympathy for the corrections officers who worked there. 'God bless the corrections officers who did what they could with what they had,' she said. Toward the back of the room sat Bill Rogers, a brick wall of a man who spends nearly two hours a day in the gym. He was one of those guards. A few minutes after her speech, Rogers stood suddenly, looking like a frog was lodged in his throat, as his eyes welled with tears. He spoke directly to Shonk-Little: 'What courage … to come here. And everything you said was right. It was true. I remember. And as a former officer, I apologize. That's all I can say.' She responded: 'I'm sorry you were treated the way you were treated also.' They hugged. At a coffee shop the next morning, Rogers explained he was a high school dropout and heavy equipment operator who thought $20 an hour, plus benefits, working for CoreCivic sounded like a good gig. 'I just needed a job,' he recalled. He started working as a correctional officer in 2016 and initially loved it. 'I bet you 85% of those inmates I met? I would have hung out with them on the street. They were just decent people who made a mistake. I really believe that,' he said. Not long after Rogers started, the voluntary overtime shifts became mandatory. A 2017 audit by the Department of Justice found that understaffing was hurting safety and security at the facility. In recent court filings, lawyers for Leavenworth accused CoreCivic of gross mismanagement of the previous facility, resulting in 'rampant abuse, violence and violations of the constitutional rights of its detainees and staff'. They referenced one incident in November 2018, when CoreCivic didn't report the death of an inmate to city police for six days. It's that death that haunts Rogers' dreams. Dillon Reed was only 29 when he ended up at the Leavenworth facility on a drug charge, but Rogers remembered he was a funny, sweet kid who reminded him of his adult son. 'He made me laugh,' Rogers said. Reed had an addiction, and alcohol and drugs were rampant inside the prison, Rogers said. On Thanksgiving Day in 2018, Reed was found dead in his cell. Rogers was working in a different section of the facility, but he was called to remove Reed's body from his cell. An autopsy later showed that Reed likely died of sudden cardiac death, with a mixture of alcohol and drugs in his system. Rogers still can't talk about it without getting choked up. Calling an ambulance quickly could have saved Reed, he said. 'When that door came open? I didn't see an inmate. I saw a young man … and I saw my son,' he said. 'I don't care that he was an inmate … he was a human soul. He shouldn't have died. We had a job to do, and it didn't happen that day.' In 2020, Rogers was stabbed in the hand and had his head split open with a cafeteria tray by combative prisoners. Later that year, he was so fed up with the lack of security, he said, that when a prisoner came at him, he shoved the man against the wall – and was fired. Some of Rogers' former detention officer friends will not talk to him anymore, because he's been speaking out, he said. He said they tell him: 'You didn't do shit when you worked there, and now you're running your mouth.' Marcia Levering, a former CoreCivic colleague of Rogers, is also speaking out about the attack by a prisoner that nearly killed her. She was working in February 2021, shortly before the facility closed, when a colleague opened the wrong security door. A prisoner who was angry at her beat her senselessly and stabbed her multiple times. She spent two months in the hospital and is now permanently disabled, struggling to pay her rent. 'They're not looking out for the safety of their inmates or staff,' Levering said of CoreCivic. 'They're looking out for their own self-interest, which is taking the taxpayers' money to line the pockets of their higher-ups.' Lawyers for the city of Leavenworth filed a motion last week asking the state district judge to formalize the temporary injunction. The motion states that the 'federal government might apply pressure on CoreCivic to defy or look for loopholes in this Court's orders', while noting that the company has 'accelerated' activity at the detention center. Meanwhile, residents are planning a march against the detention center on 19 July. They plan to meet 10 days earlier at MoMos to make homemade protest signs. This article was published in partnership with The Marshall Project, a non-profit news organization covering the US criminal justice system. Sign up for their newsletters, and follow them on Instagram, TikTok, Reddit and Facebook
