The immigrant detainee, a client of Rekha Sharma-Crawford, would have to be moved.
Chase County Detention Center was full.
Located in Cottonwood Falls, it’s the largest detainee holding center in the region contracting with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.
Sharma-Crawford, a longtime immigration attorney, saw something more foreboding when she heard the recent news about her client: The Trump administration’s rhetoric promising mass deportations was taking shape.
“I think sweeps are increasing,” she said. “Clearly, more people are being detained.”
A database of ICE records lists the Chase County jail as having an average immigration-related census of about 79 people, as of Feb. 8, 2025.
As of Feb. 26, about 115 people were being held there with immigration-related issues. The vast majority were Latino men listed as “deportable.”
Mexican, Honduran, Guatemalan, Venezuelan and Colombian were common nationalities. But people from a wide range of other nations were also detained and listed as deportable or being in the country without legal status, including India, Congo, China, Rwanda and Sudan.
County jails like Chase have long been where ICE holds people the agency plans to remove from the U.S.
Sharma-Crawford’s client was relocated to the Greene County Jail in Springfield, Missouri, which also is holding detainees for ICE.
President Donald Trump’s campaign promises of deporting all of the nation’s estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants, coupled with a lack of space for detainees, represents financial opportunity to privately operated prison companies.
CORECIVIC, an owner/operator of prisons, is attempting to reopen a shuttered federal prison in Leavenworth as a detention center capable of holding about 1,000 immigrants for an average stay of 51 days. The organization hosted an invitation-only luncheon and information session Saturday for stakeholders.
The special-use permit must be considered by the Leavenworth Planning Commission and then the City Commission. The Planning Commission is scheduled to consider the special-use permit in a public hearing on April 7.
Leavenworth’s next City Commission meeting is March 11 and people are welcome to offer comments, limited to three minutes, said City Manager Scott Peterson. He noted that the City Commission is scheduled to begin formal consideration of the special-use permit on May 13.
The commission does need to give city staff approval to negotiate on any agreements that would be necessary between CoreCivic, the city and ICE, in the case that the special-use permit is approved.
Limited detention space might have kept the Trump administration from posting higher numbers of immigrants being held for deportation, according to a report by the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.
That report found little evidence that immigration arrests and removals have increased over the Biden administration’s recent record, despite Trump’s heavy media campaign touting his intentions to deport record numbers.
