Why a prison town that voted for Trump is fighting an immigration detention facility

Ashley Hernandez, an organizer for the Sisters of Charity Leavenworth, lamented that CoreCivic has portrayed those who oppose the 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.