Mayor Quinton Lucas is continuing his push against the possibility of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility coming to Kansas City.
He told KCUR’s Up To Date on Wednesday that he thinks an ICE facility coming to the metro is still a possibility.
“The cities where their opportunities are dropping are announcing that — Oklahoma City, there was likelihood of it, and the property owner pulled out. I think there was another East Coast community that had the same sort of thing. So, not having heard that yet in Kansas City, I think that it’s something that we still need to advocate against and we need to fight against,” Lucas said.
The Kansas City Council passed an ordinance last month that established a five-year moratorium on non-municipal detention facilities. However, it's not clear if that will prevent the federal government from establishing a detention center anyways.
Lucas thinks that the moratorium is going to be an “important stop gap, at least for a little while,” but also believes the federal government could try to challenge the ordinance.
“This is something I'm not pretending that it wouldn't end up in federal district court. I imagine it could end up in federal court," Lucas said. "We welcome that type of review because, frankly, I think that this is worth standing against, and if we get to be the example of an American city doing it, and if we have to fight it for years, I'm willing to do that.”
