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    I’m no fan of Elon Musk. But Trump’s threat to deport him is sickening | Justice Malala

    Elon Musk is an utterly deplorable human being. He has unashamedly flashed an apparent Nazi salute; encouraged rightwing extremists in Germany and elsewhere; falsely claimed there is a “genocide” in South Africa against white farmers; callously celebrated the dismantling of USAID, whose shuttering will lead to the deaths of millions, according to a study published in the Lancet this week; and increased misinformation and empowered extremists on his Twitter/X platform while advancing his sham “I am a free speech absolutist” claims. And so much more.So the news that Donald Trump “will take a look” at deporting his billionaire former “first buddy” Musk has many smirking and shrugging: “Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.”I like a good comeuppance, but this doesn’t please me at all. It sends a chill down the spine. It is the use of law enforcement agencies as a tool to chill debate, to silence disagreement and dissent, and to punish political opposition. Democracy is dimming fast in the United States, but threats to deport US citizens for disagreeing with the governing administration’s policies are the domain of authoritarian regimes such as Belarus or Cameroon.Coming just hours after his officials raised the possibility of stripping Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic mayoral candidate for New York who was naturalised in 2018, of his US citizenship, Trump’s threat should have all of America – a country of immigrants – appalled, afraid and up in arms. As the Guardian reported on Tuesday, the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, appeared to pave the way for an investigation into Mamdani’s status after Andy Ogles, a rightwing Republican congressman for Tennessee, called for his citizenship to be revoked on the grounds that he might have concealed his support for “terrorism” during the naturalization process. Trump has branded Mamdani “a pure communist” and said “we don’t need a communist in this country”.Mamdani has not broken any laws. His sin? Running for office.In his threats against Mamdani and Musk, the president comes across like the notorious Republican senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s. McCarthy was, according to the Harvard law dean Ervin Griswold, “judge, jury, prosecutor, castigator, and press agent, all in one”. Trump’s threats to Musk and Mamdani are a departure from the administration’s modus operandi of targeting foreign students involved in pro-Palestinian organizing on US college campuses. It is now targeting people it disagrees with on any issue. The threats are not based on any generally applicable laws but on the whim of the president or other administration leaders. It is an escalation of the assault on civil liberties using government entities to arbitrarily investigate and potentially punish critics.Over the past four weeks Musk’s sin has been to vehemently oppose Trump’s sweeping spending bill, calling it a “disgusting abomination”. Musk is of course not concerned about the bill’s slashing of health insurance, food stamps and other aid for the poor, but that it does not slash enough and that its cuts to green energy tax credits may cost his company, Tesla, about $1.2bn.But Musk is a US citizen with the right to oppose a piece of legislation without threats from the highest office in the land and the fear of deportation. When Musk poured $288m of his money into Trump and other Republicans’ 2024 candidacies, no one raised a hand to question his credentials as an American. Instead, the administration gave him the run of the White House including midnight ice cream binges and a job as a glorified bean counter at the so-called department of government efficiency (Doge).The hypocrisy and the corruption embedded within Trump’s deportation threats is mind-boggling but unsurprising given his track record. The consequence, like the McCarthyism of the 1950s, is a climate of fear and a chilling of political discourse and action. Proud Americans who arrived here recently, such as Mamdani, are fearful of running for office, of speaking their minds in true American tradition, despite having the same responsibilities and privileges as every other American conferred on them. Trump’s threat does to Musk what it does to every immigrant: it shuts them up, it holds over their head the possibility of made-up charges and deportation to El Salvador or some other country.Musk and his like were chortling when the Columbia University activist Mahmoud Khalil was cruelly detained for months. It is in the nature of those who like to tweet about freedom but do not think about it deeply enough, such as Musk, to not realize that their silence when the rights of a Khalil or a Mamdani are trampled upon will come back to haunt them. The Republican rump is silent today as Musk is threatened with deportation, just as it has been when masked men have come for Khalil and others who dared exercise their first amendment rights.There will be silence when they come for the Republicans. That’s because we will all be gone by then, after no one else said a thing.

    Justice Malala is a political commentator and author of The Plot To Save South Africa: The Week Mandela Averted Civil War and Forged a New Nation More

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    After 47 years in the US, Ice took this Iranian mother from her yard. Her family just wants her home

    Kaitlynn Milne says her mother is usually always up first thing in the morning, hours before the rest of the family. She enjoys being productive in the quiet hours around sunrise. It’s an especially optimal time to do yard work, when the rest of her New Orleans neighborhood still sleeps and she can count on peacefully completing chores.Gardening and rearranging the shed is how an average morning would go for Mandonna “Donna” Kashanian, a 64-year-old Iranian mother, wife, home cook, parent-teacher association (PTA) member and lifelong community service volunteer.“She always says: ‘I’ve already done most of my day before y’all even wake up,’ complaining at us,” said Kaitlynn, 32. It was always done with love, she says, as her mother adores taking care of others and would wake up every morning excited to do just that.But the morning of Sunday, 22 June, didn’t go like every other morning. In the early hours, while her husband, Russell Milne, slept inside the house, Kashanian was approached in her yard by plainclothes men who identified themselves as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents.She was quickly arrested without her family being told anything. They only found out after a neighbor who happened to be awake witnessed the arrest and notified them.According to the neighbor, Kashanian was handcuffed before being taken away by multiple agents, details Kashanian herself was later able to confirm to her family. Her arrest involved three unmarked cars, including one that appeared to be a lookout, which her neighbor and family believe had been watching for a moment when Kashanian was outside and alone.“Had the neighbors not walked out at the same time they were pushing her into the car, we would not have known she was taken,” said Russell.Kashanian was able to call her family about an hour later, when she relayed to them what had happened and where she was. Ice officers told her that she was being taken to a holding center in Mississippi, before eventually being transferred back to a detention center in Louisiana. After that Sunday morning call, her husband and daughter didn’t hear from her again until Tuesday.She remains in Ice custody in Basile, Louisiana, despite having no criminal record.The timing of Kashanian’s detention was just hours after US airstrikes in Iran, a move that has coincided with the ramping-up of deportations of Iranians by the Trump administration. It also comes amid a nationwide crackdown by Ice, which has seen tens of thousands of immigrants detained, often by masked agents, plunged many communities into fear and outraged civil liberties advocates.View image in fullscreenKashanian arrived in the US in 1978 on a student visa and has lived in the country ever since. She later applied for asylum, citing fears of persecution due to her father’s ties to the US-backed Shah of Iran.Her asylum request was ultimately denied, but she was granted a stay of removal on the condition she comply with immigration requirements, a condition her family says she always met. Kashanian was so careful about regularly attending her meetings with immigration officials that she once checked in from South Carolina during Hurricane Katrina.Despite having to juggle constant immigration checks, Kashanian remained devoted to community service work. She volunteered with Habitat for Humanity, helping rebuild homes after Katrina. She worked with Nola Tree Project, a local non-profit that replants trees after disasters. She served on a PTA, volunteering at her daughter’s elementary school, middle school and high school.“She was constantly around,” said Kaitlynn. “She was constantly helping with upkeep of the schools. She was always there, always helping the teachers and custodial staff, anything to be supportive. Everyone knew Kaitlynn’s mom.”She also found the time to become a skilled home cook. Her YouTube channel, titled Mandonna in the Kitchen, is dedicated to sharing her favorite Persian recipes with aspiring cooks.According to her daughter and husband, Kashanian is an optimist who is almost impossible to upset. But there is one thing that never fails to unsettle her, and that’s improperly cooked rice.Now that she has been moved to a facility in Louisiana, her family has been able to set up a line of communication, speaking to her once a day. But she is given a limited amount of time to call or message, so communication is restricted. She says she has still not been assigned a case worker.“She’s in pretty good spirits,” said Russell. “She’s more worried about us, and about the lack of communication she’s getting about her situation. They’re not really giving her any information, and that’s what’s scary.”Russell and Kaitlynn have been working tirelessly to find legal help, but it has been challenging due in part to the complexity of Donna’s case, with some of her documents seeming to have been lost over decades of changing hands in the immigration offices.View image in fullscreenBut the other big challenge is the limited availability of immigration lawyers. As the Trump administration has escalated the number of Ice arrests, there is a shortage of legal counsel for immigrants and their families to go to for help.“We have been on the phone nonstop from 8am to 10pm almost every day the last week trying to find help, and it’s proving difficult because all the immigration lawyers are all dealing with everyone else’s crises as well,” said Kaitlynn. “So far, we haven’t gotten a lot of optimistic responses.”Like her mother, Kaitlynn remains in good spirits despite the constant obstacles, staying focused on helping someone else who currently needs it. But there is one moment in her show of resilience when her voice falters, as she recalls a memory from her childhood when her mother created a French book section in her New Orleans elementary school library.“I had forgotten that until just now,” Kaitlynn said, through tears. “Because there were no French books in the library. She organized that and got it together and painted this little tiny nook.”Russell says the focus currently is just to get his wife out of detention. “We’re working on a grassroots campaign and a letter-writing campaign on her behalf, that will hopefully be able to at least gain her release from the detention center,” he said.“After that, we can move forward with next steps through the immigration offices,” he added. “But right now, just getting her home is the challenge.” More

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    Kilmar Ábrego García was tortured in Salvadorian prison, court filing alleges

    Kilmar Ábrego García, the Maryland man who was wrongfully deported to El Salvador and detained in one of that country’s most notorious prisons, was physically and psychologically tortured during the three months he spent in Salvadorian custody, according to new court documents filed Wednesday.While being held at the so-called Terrorism Confinement Center (Cecot) in El Salvador, Ábrego García and 20 other men “were forced to kneel from approximately 9:00 PM to 6:00 AM”, according to the court papers filed by his lawyers in the federal district court in Maryland.Guards struck anyone who fell from exhaustion while kneeling, and during that time, “Ábrego García was denied bathroom access and soiled himself”, according to the filing.Detainees were held in an overcrowded cell with no windows, and bright lights on 24 hours a day. They were confined to metal bunk beds with no mattresses.Ábrego García’s testimony is one of the first detailed insights the world has into the conditions inside Cecot, a megaprison that human rights groups say is designed to disappear people.His lawyers say he lost 31 pounds during his first two weeks of confinement. Later, they write, he and four others were transferred to a different part of the prison “where they were photographed with mattresses and better food–photos that appeared to be staged to document improved conditions”.The filings also note that officials within the prison acknowledged that Ábrego García was not a gang member, and that his tattoos did not indicate a gang affiliation. “Prison officials explicitly acknowledged that plaintiff Ábrego García’s tattoos were not gang-related, telling him ‘your tattoos are fine,’” per the filing, and they kept him in a cell separate from those accused of gang membership.The prison officials, however, threatened to move Ábrego García into a cell with gang members whom officials said “would ‘tear’ him apart”.Ábrego García is currently in federal custody in Nashville. The Trump administration brought him back from El Salvador after initially claiming it was powerless to do so. The US justice department wants him to stand trial on human-smuggling charges. The administration has also accused him of being a member of the street gang MS-13, and Donald Trump has claimed that Ábrego García’s tattoos indicate that he belonged to the gang.Ábrego García has pleaded not guilty to the smuggling charges, which his attorneys have characterized as an attempt to justify the administration’s mistake in deporting him after the fact.On Sunday , a Tennessee judge ordered his release while his criminal case plays out, but prosecutors said US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) would take Ábrego García into custody if that were to happen and he would be deported before he was given the chance to stand trial.A justice department lawyer, Jonathan Guynn, also told a federal judge in Maryland that the administration would deport Ábrego García not to El Salvador but to another, third country – contradicting statements from attorney general Pam Bondi that he would be sent to El Salvador.Amid the confusion, Ábrego García’s lawyers requested that their client remain in criminal custody, fearing that if he were released, he would be deported. Upcoming hearings in both Maryland and Tennessee will help decide whether Ábrego García will be able to remain in the US and be released from jail. More

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    Judge blocks Trump’s attempt to bar asylum access at US-Mexico border

    A federal court has ruled that Donald Trump’s proclamation of an “invasion” at the US-Mexico border is unlawful, saying that the president had exceeded his authority in suspending the right to apply for asylum at the southern border.As part of his crackdown on immigration, Trump abruptly closed the southern border to tens of thousands of people who had been waiting to cross into the US legally and apply for asylum, signing a proclamation on the day of his inauguration that directed officials to take action to “repel, repatriate, or remove any alien engaged in the invasion across the southern border of the United States”.In a ruling on Wednesday, US district judge Randolph Moss ruled in favor of 13 people seeking asylum in the US and three immigrants’ rights groups who argued that it was unlawful to declare an invasion and unilaterally ban the right to claim asylum.Moss ruled that nothing in the Immigration and Nationality Act or the US constitution “grants the president or his delegees the sweeping authority asserted in the proclamation and implementing guidance”.He also asserted the constitution did not give the president the authority to “adopt an alternative immigration system, which supplants the statutes that Congress has enacted and the regulations that the responsible agencies have promulgated”.The ruling will not take effect immediately; rather Moss has given the Trump administration 14 days to seek emergency relief from the federal appeals court. But if Moss’s ruling holds up, the Trump administration would have to renew processing asylum claims at the border.People fleeing persecution and danger in their home countries would still be subject to a slew of other measures that have restricted access to legal immigration pathways. But the ruling would require the homeland security department to offer people at the southern border at least some way to seek refuge in the US.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionFor now, crossings at the US-Mexico border have dropped sharply since the administration cut off legal pathways to enter and ramped up the active military presence in the region.But many who had journeyed to the border – fleeing extreme violence, authoritarianism and poverty in Central and South America, as well as Africa and Asia – remained stranded on the Mexican side, holding out hope in shelters for migrants. Others have dispersed into Mexico, seeking work or residency there.Advocates have warned that many of the migrants left in the lurch by Trump’s abrupt asylum ban have been put in vulnerable and dangerous situations. The plaintiffs in the case challenging Trump’s ban had fled persecution in Afghanistan, Ecuador, Cuba, Egypt, Brazil, Turkey and Peru. Some have already been removed from the US.The district court ruling comes after a landmark supreme court decision last week in a case challenging Trump’s attempt to unilaterally end the country’s longstanding tradition of birthright citizenship. On Friday, the country’s highest court ruled to curb the power of federal judges to impose nationwide rulings impeding the president’s policies.But because the case challenging Trump’s asylum ban was filed as a class-action lawsuit, it is not affected by higher court’s restriction. More

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    With his immigration bill, Canada’s prime minister is bowing to Trump | Tayo Bero

    There are many stereotypes about Canada – that we are a nation of extremely polite people, a welcoming melting pot, and that we’re the US’s laid-back cousin who lives nextdoor.But right now, the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, is bucking all of that lore after pressure from the US in the form of Donald Trump’s “concerns” about undocumented migrants and fentanyl moving across the US-Canada border. In response, the recently elected Liberal PM put forward a 127-page bill that includes, among other worrying provisions, sweeping changes to immigration policy that would make the process much more precarious for refugees and could pave the way for mass deportations.If passed, Carney’s Strong Borders Act (or Bill C-2) would bar anyone who has been in the country for more than a year from receiving refugee hearings. That would apply retroactively to anyone who entered the country after June 2020. If they arrived on foot between official ports of entry, meanwhile, they would have to apply for asylum within 14 days of entering Canada – a disastrous outcome for people fleeing Trump’s persecution. The bill also gives the immigration minister’s office the authority to cancel immigration documents en masse.This bill has been widely condemned by politicians and advocacy groups such as Amnesty International and the Migrants Rights Network, who are rightly worried about just how much havoc a change like this could wreak. Jenny Wai Ching Kwan, a member of parliament for Vancouver East, told reporters the bill would breach civil liberties and basic rights.So what excuse does Canada have for this kind of 180 on its immigration legacy? According to the government, the aim of this legislation is to “keep Canadians safe by ensuring law enforcement has the right tools to keep our borders secure, combat transnational organized crime, stop the flow of illegal fentanyl, and crack down on money laundering”.In reality, Bill C-2 contains measures that the public safety minister, Gary Anandasangaree, has admitted were a response to “the concerns that have been posed by the White House”.“There are elements that will strengthen [our] relationships with the United States,” he said in a press conference. “There were a number of elements in the bill that have been irritants for the US, so we are addressing some of those issues.”Tim McSorley, the national coordinator for the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group, condemned the federal government over the senselessness of this move. “If the government is serious about addressing concerns regarding illegal gun and drug trafficking, it must introduce legislation specifically tailored to that goal, as opposed to a wide-ranging omnibus bill,” he said.The demonization of immigrants has been a talking point for populist leaders throughout the west, so it’s not surprising to see Carney lean into that rhetoric in order to appease Trump. Spurred on by the xenophobic rhetoric coming out of the US, Britain, and large swaths of Europe, anyone who comes from away is forced to bear the blame for the economic messes and ensuing societal erosion these countries have found themselves battling.By feeding directly into this pipeline, Carney makes Canada not the powerful country poised to beat Trump at his dangerous games (elbows up, my foot), but a cowardly ally in the US’s campaign of terror against immigrants.

    Tayo Bero is a Guardian US columnist More

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    Judge blocks Kristi Noem from ending temporary protected status for Haitians

    A federal judge has blocked the Trump administration’s bid to end temporary deportation protections and work permits for approximately 521,000 Haitian immigrants before the program’s scheduled expiration date.Earlier this year, the Department of Homeland Security rescinded Joe Biden’s extension of temporary protected status (TPS) for Haitians through 3 February. It called for the program to end on 3 August, and last week pushed back that date to 2 September.The US district judge Brian Cogan in Brooklyn, however, said the homeland security secretary Kristi Noem did not follow instructions and a timeline mandated by Congress to reconsider the TPS designation for Haitians.“Secretary Noem does not have statutory or inherent authority to partially vacate a country’s TPS designation”, making her actions “unlawful”, Cogan wrote. “Plaintiffs are likely to (and, indeed, do) succeed on the merits.”Cogan also said Haitians’ interests in being able to live and work in the United States “far outweigh” potential harm to the US government, which remains free to enforce immigration laws and terminate TPS status as prescribed by Congress.Donald Trump has made a crackdown on legal and illegal immigration a central plank of his second White House term.Cogan was appointed to the bench by George W Bush, also a Republican.In a statement, Tricia McLaughlin, homeland security spokesperson, said Haiti’s TPS designation had been granted following the 2010 earthquake in that country, and was never intended as a “de facto” asylum program.“This ruling delays justice and seeks to kneecap the President’s constitutionally vested powers,” she said. “We expect a higher court to vindicate us.”Federal courts blocked Trump from ending most TPS enrollment during his first term.Nine Haitian TPS holders, an association of churches and a chapter of the Service Employees International Union filed the lawsuit on 14 March, saying Noem did not do a required review of current conditions in Haiti before ending TPS early.More than 1 million people, more than half of them children, are displaced within Haiti, where gang violence is prevalent despite a United Nations-backed security mission that began last year.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotion“While the fight is far from over, this is an important step,” Manny Pastreich, president of SEIU Local 32BJ, whose members include Haitian TPS holders, said in a statement.Noem shares Trump’s hardline stance on immigration issues, and moved to end TPS for about 350,000 Venezuelans as well as thousands of people from Afghanistan and Cameroon.On 19 May, the US supreme court let TPS end for the Venezuelans, signaling that other terminations could be allowed.Noem has authority to grant TPS for six to eight months to people from countries experiencing natural disasters, armed conflict or other extraordinary events.The Haitian plaintiffs also claimed the suspension of their TPS status was motivated in part by racial animus, violating their constitutional right to equal protection.Trump falsely said in a September 2024 debate with Democratic candidate Kamala Harris that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were eating pets, sparking fear of retaliation against Haitians. More

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    What’s in Trump’s major tax bill? Extended cuts, deportations and more

    Senate Republicans on Tuesday passed Donald Trump’s massive tax and spending bill after spending all night voting on amendments. The bill, which the GOP has dubbed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, now returns to the House of Representatives, which passed their version last month, before a Friday deadline the president has imposed for the legislation to be on his desk.Here’s what’s in the Senate’s version of the bill:Extending big tax cutsAfter taking office in 2017, Trump signed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which lowered taxes and increased the standard deduction for all taxpayers, but generally benefited high earners more than most. Those provisions are set to expire after this year, but the “big, beautiful bill” makes them permanent, while increasing the standard deduction by $1,000 for individuals, $1,500 for heads of households and $2,000 for married couples, albeit only through 2028.Cutting tax on tips or overtimeThe bill has an array of new tax write-offs – but only while Trump is president. Several of the new exemptions stem from promises Trump made while campaigning last year. Taxpayers will be able to write off income from tips and overtime, and interest made on loans to purchase cars assembled in the United States. People aged 65 and over are eligible for an additional deduction of $6,000, provided their adjusted gross income does not exceed $75,000 for single filers or $150,000 for couples. But all of these incentives expire at the end of 2028, right before Trump’s term as president ends.Money for mass deportations and a border wallAs part of Trump’s plan to remove undocumented immigrants from the country, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) will receive $45bn for detention facilities, $14bn for deportation operations and billions of dollars more to hire an additional 10,000 new agents by 2029. More than $50bn is allocated for the construction of new border fortifications, which will probably include a wall along the border with Mexico.Slashing Medicaid and food stampsRepublicans have attempted to cut down on the bill’s cost by slashing two major federal safety-net programs: Medicaid, which provides healthcare to poor and disabled Americans, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap), which helps people afford groceries. Both are in for funding cuts, as well as new work requirements. The left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates the Medicaid changes could cost as many as 10.6 million people their healthcare, and about eight million people, or one in five recipients, their Snap benefits.Cuts to green energyThe bill will phase out many tax incentives created by Congress during Joe Biden’s presidency meant to encourage consumers and businesses to use electric vehicles and other clean-energy technology. Credits for cleaner cars will end this year, as will subsidies for Americans seeking to upgrade their homes to cleaner or more energy-efficient appliances. While a draft of the bill targeted wind- and solar-energy projects with a new excise tax, senators voted to remove that at the last minute.State and local tax relief (Salt)One of the thorniest issues the bill addresses is how much relief to provide from state and local taxes (Salt), which many Americans must also pay in addition to their federal tax. Several House Republicans representing districts in Democratic-led states withheld their support from the bill until the Salt deductibility cap was raised from $10,000 to $40,000, but Senate Republicans made clear they would change that. The Senate’s version keeps the $40,000 cap, but only through 2028.Raising the debt ceilingThe bill will increase the US government’s authority to borrow, known as the debt limit, by $5tn. The US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, has predicted the government will hit the limit by August, at which point it could default on its debt and spark a financial crisis.More benefits for the rich than the poorWealthier taxpayers appear set to receive more benefits from this bill than poorer ones, according to the Budget Lab at Yale University. Taxpayers in the lowest-income quintile will see a 2.5% decrease in their incomes, largely due to the Snap and Medicaid cuts, while the highest earners will see their incomes grow by 2.4%, the Budget Lab estimated. The impact could change based on which amendments the Senate adopts.A huge price tagDespite the GOP’s attempts to use the bill as a vehicle to rein in government spending, the bill would increase the deficit by $3.3tn through 2034, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office. Most of that price tag is the extension of the 2017 tax cuts. The heavy budgetary impact could complicate the bill’s chances of passing the House, where fiscal hardliners have demanded budget-deficit reductions. More

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    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 such as 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.View image in fullscreenThe 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.”View image in fullscreenSome 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.View image in fullscreenShe 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.View image in fullscreen“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 More