The Brief

Another immigrant died in the custody of federal immigration authorities in California, raising new questions about the care of detainees amid the Trump administration’s historic mass deportation campaign.

In an announcement, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Huabing Xie, an immigrant from China, had a seizure Friday at the Imperial Regional Detention Facility in Calexico and died that afternoon.

Xie had been detained at the Calexico detention center since last month. ICE alleged that Xie was in the U.S. without legal status and said federal agents arrested him on Sept. 12 in Indio.

Staffers at the center gave Xie CPR and used a defibrillator, a medical device typically used to shock a patient’s heart, according to ICE. But Xie was later pronounced dead at El Centro Regional Medical Center.

Imperial County immigrants’ rights advocates said they were saddened and angered by the news. Imperial Liberation Collaborative organizer Marina Arteaga said Xie’s death fit into a pattern marked by dwindling oversight and increasingly harsh conditions at federal detention centers across the country.

“This is not an isolated incident,” Arteaga told KPBS on Monday.

Arteaga and other immigrants’ rights advocates are demanding that ICE release more details and calling on state and county authorities to investigate Xie’s death.

On Monday, ICE said an investigation was underway but declined to answer further questions.

More immigrants are dying in federal detention

Xie’s case was the second reported death of an immigrant in ICE custody in California in two weeks.

On Sept. 21, 39-year-old Ismael Ayala-Uribe died inside ICE’s detention center in the High Desert city of Adelanto after developing a cough and fever. ICE has also said they are investigating Ayala-Uribe’s death.

The incidents come amid what several Democratic senators have called the deadliest six-month period for immigrants in federal detention nationwide since 2018.

ICE has publicly reported that at least 14 people have died in its custody since January. In a letter earlier this year, Georgia Sens. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock said the agency had also failed to acknowledge a fifteenth death at a county jail in New York State.

(ICE has since publicly confirmed that death but has yet to list it on the agency’s official detainee death tracking page as of Monday.)

Ayala-Uribe and Xie bring the total to 17.

That string of in-custody deaths comes as ICE races to expand its massive detention network. Flush with $45 billion in new funding from Congress, the agency is building new tent camps and expanding its use of military bases in a mad rush to fulfill President Donald Trump’s vow of mass deportations.

In Imperial County, Arteaga said that rush has also come with a crackdown on transparency.

Arteaga and the Collaborative have been visiting the Imperial County detention center since 2022 to spend time with detainees and document their experiences. They were completely shut out as of this August, she said.

“We have not been able to go inside the facility,” Arteaga said. “We don't know what's going on.”

What we know about Xie’s death

Beyond what ICE has already described, the circumstances of Xie’s death are unclear.

A spokesperson for El Centro Regional Medical Center reached by phone Friday also declined to comment.

One important question, Imperial Valley Equity and Justice Coalition executive director Daniela Flores said, is whether immigration agents used force against Xie during his arrest or detention.

Another question, she said, is whether Xie had any existing medical conditions that could lead to seizures — and whether he reported any symptoms to staff at the detention center.

“That is putting myself into his family's shoes,” Flores said. “Knowing that they probably want answers.”

Earlier this year, the California Attorney General’s office found that the Imperial County detention center was struggling to hire a medical director, leading to “delays in addressing clinical errors by lower-level health staff.”

Flores is asking state Attorney General Rob Bonta and the Imperial County public health officials to investigate.

In its statement Friday, ICE said U.S. Border Patrol agents first arrested Xie in 2023 near the eastern San Diego County town of Tecate. The agency said Xie was placed in removal proceedings and released.

KPBS could not locate any criminal records for Xie.

Local officials face calls for accountability

To Flores and Arteaga, Xie’s death highlights a lack of oversight of the Imperial Regional Detention Facility by elected officials.

The detention center is run by Management and Training Corporation (MTC), a private, for-profit company based in Centerville, Utah. The facility holds up to 782 detainees. In 2022, ICE reported that it spent more than $44 million on the facility every year.

The detention center has faced allegations of abuse in the past. In 2021, Carlos Murillo Vega, who grew up in Imperial County, sued MTC for holding him in solitary confinement for over a year. In 2022, nine detainees said in a civil rights complaint that their cells were moldy and the water tasted like bleach.

California has given county officials the power to inspect ICE detention centers in their jurisdiction. But Imperial County and most others have not used that power, Calmatters reported earlier this month.

In an email to KPBS, Calexico Mayor Diana Noricumbo said the detention center is located in an unincorporated part of the city, outside their jurisdiction.

KPBS also reached out to Imperial County’s five supervisors and a county spokesperson. None responded to questions by publication time.

As Los Angeles homeowners grapple with the expense of rebuilding after last year’s devastating fires, an L.A. City Councilmember is putting forward an idea that could lower some costs.

Councilmember Traci Park, who represents the Pacific Palisades, has introduced a motion to explore waiving part of the city’s portion of the local sales tax for fire victims who purchase rebuilding materials in the city.

The 1% of the local 9.75% sales tax that goes into the city’s general fund would be given back to consumers under the proposal. The waiver could apply to lumber, appliances and other rebuilding goods purchased within the city.

The motion, introduced Friday by Park and seconded by Councilmember John Lee, says: “The City should do everything within its power to alleviate the financial burden for these residents and businesses in order to facilitate their return and stabilize the Pacific Palisades community.”

Would it make much of a difference? 

Economists told LAist the proposal could help many homeowners mitigate the high cost of rebuilding, but likely wouldn’t tip the scales for under-insured, under-resourced property owners.

“It wouldn't hurt if it's very well designed and easy to use,” said Alexander Meeks, a director at the Santa Monica-based Milken Institute. “But I'm not sure if it's really going to tackle the scale of the financial challenge that survivors are facing.”

Meeks noted that the tax waiver wouldn’t lower up-front costs such as environmental testing, architectural design and permitting. And it may not help homeowners sourcing raw materials from outside the city.

Zhiyun Li, a UCLA Anderson School of Management economist, said the waiver could help some homeowners justify the additional cost of rebuilding more fire-safe structures.

“Homeowners must typically pay out of pocket to upgrade to IBHS+ standards, which are more stringent,” Li said. “The tax waiver could encourage upgrading to IBHS+ standards or investing more in mitigation, thereby reducing future risk and improving the likelihood of maintaining insurance coverage.”

What’s next for the proposal? 

The proposed tax relief would not be available to properties that have been sold since the fires started in January 2025.

The motion has been sent to the City Council’s budget and fire recovery committees. If approved by the full council, it would require the city administrative officer, the Office of Finance and the city attorney to report back to the council within 60 days on options for crafting a tax relief plan.

The motion calls for the report to consider factors such as how to minimize the burden of administering the tax relief, what documentation homeowners would have to submit and what it would cost the city to oversee the program.

Senate and House Republican leadership have resurrected a stalled plan to fund the Department of Homeland Security after a record 47-day funding lapse.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said in a joint statement on Wednesday that the House will take up a measure passed by the Senate last week to fund most of DHS except Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol through the end of September.

Republicans would then attempt to fund ICE and Border Patrol for three years using a party-line budget reconciliation bill that would not require support from Democrats.

"In following this two-track approach, the Republican Congress will fully reopen the Department, make sure all federal workers are paid, and specifically fund immigration enforcement and border security for the next three years so that those law-enforcement activities can continue uninhibited," Thune and Johnson wrote.

The agreement comes nearly a week after House Republicans dismissed an identical plan, refusing to take up the Senate-passed measure and instead passing a 60-day short term funding bill for all of DHS that had little chance of overcoming Democratic opposition in the Senate.

Johnson called the agreement a "joke" and President Donald Trump declined to publicly endorse the deal. Trump had previously resisted any package that did not include his push to overhaul federal elections known as the Save America Act.

"I think any deal they make, I'm pretty much not happy with it," Trump told reporters last week.

Democrats welcomed the agreement as in line with their pledge not to give ICE any more money without reforms after immigration enforcement agents killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis. But the deal does not include any of the policy demands Democrats are pressing for, such as a ban on masks for immigration enforcement officers and requiring warrants issued by a judge, not just the agency, to enter homes.

"For days, Republican divisions derailed a bipartisan agreement, making American families pay the price for their dysfunction," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote in a statement Wednesday. "Throughout this fight, Senate Democrats never wavered."

Trump seemed to bless the revived plan earlier Wednesday, writing on social media that he wants a party-line bill to fund immigration enforcement on his desk by June 1.

"We are going to work as fast, and as focused, as possible to replenish funding for our Border and ICE Agents, and the Radical Left Democrats won't be able to stop us," Trump wrote.

Despite the shutdown, ICE has been minimally impacted because Republican lawmakers approved $75 billion for ICE through another party-line budget reconciliation bill last year.

Congress is on a two-week recess, but the Senate and House could move to fund all of DHS except ICE and CBP as early as Thursday using a procedure known as unanimous consent that allows the chambers to circumvent formal voting as long as no member objects.

Even during a recess when most members are not in Washington, this could be unpredictable, especially in the House, where many hard-line conservatives oppose a deal that does not fully fund DHS.

"Let's make this simple: caving to Democrats and not paying CBP and ICE is agreeing to defund Law Enforcement and leaving our borders wide open again," Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., a member of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, wrote on X. "If that's the vote, I'm a NO."

If a member does object, that could require waiting for another vote when all members are back from recess.

Claudia Grisales contributed reporting.
Copyright 2026 NPR

California clocked its second-worst snowpack on record Wednesday, a potentially troubling signal ahead for fire season.

It’s an alarming end to a winter that saw abnormally dry conditions briefly wiped from California’s drought map in January, for the first time in a quarter-century.

Though precipitation to date has been near average, much of it fell as rain rather than snow. Then March’s record-breaking heat melted most of the snow that remains. The state’s major reservoirs are nevertheless brimming above historic averages and are flirting with capacity, and a smattering of snow, rain and thunderstorms are dousing last month’s heat wave.

But experts now warn that California’s case of the missing snowpack could herald an early fire season in the mountains.

On Wednesday, state engineers conducting the symbolic April 1 snowpack measurement at Phillips Station south of Lake Tahoe found no measurable snow in patches of white dotting the grassy field.

“I want to welcome you call to probably one of the quickest snow surveys we’ve had — maybe one where people could actually use an umbrella,” joked Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources. “We’re getting a lot of questions about are we heading into a hydrologic drought? The answer is, I don’t know.”

State data reports that California’s snowpack is closing out the season at an alarming 18% of average statewide, and an even more abysmal 6% of average in the northern mountains that feed California’s major reservoirs.

Only the extreme drought year of 2015 beat this year’s snowpack for the worst on record, measuring in at just 5% of average on April 1st, when the snow historically is at its deepest.

“I think everyone's anticipating that it will be a long, busy fire season,” said Lenya Quinn-Davidson, director of the UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources Fire Network.

“Without a snowpack, and with an early spring, it just means that there’s much more time for something like that to happen.”

‘It’s pretty bizarre up here’ 

In the city of South Lake Tahoe, which survived the massive Caldor Fire in the fall of 2021 without losing any structures, fire chief Jim Drennan said his department is already ramping up prevention efforts.

“It's pretty bizarre up here right now. It really seems like June conditions more than March,” Drennan said. “People are already turning the sprinklers on for their lawns.”

Without more precipitation, an early spring may complicate prescribed burning efforts. But Drennan said fire agencies in the Tahoe basin can start mechanically clearing fuels from forest areas earlier than usual.

“That means we can get more work done,” he said.

It also means homeowners need to start hardening their homes now, said Martin Goldberg, battalion chief and fuels management officer for the Lake Valley Fire Protection District, which protects unincorporated communities in the Lake Tahoe Basin’s south shore.

Goldberg urges residents to scour their yards for burnable materials, create defensible space and reach out to local fire departments with questions. The risks are widespread — from firewood, wooden fences, gas cans, plants, pine needles — even lawn furniture stacked against a house.

“In years past, I wouldn't even think of raking and clearing until May,” Goldberg said. “But my yard's completely cleared of snowpack, and it has been for a couple weeks now.”

‘A haystack fire’

Battalion chief David Acuña, a spokesperson for Cal Fire, said fire season is shaped by more than just one year’s snowpack.

Climate change has been remaking California’s fire seasons into fire years. And California’s recent average to abundant water years have fueled what Acuña called “bumper crops of vegetation and brush.”

“Most of California is like a haystack. And if you’ve ever seen a haystack fire, they burn very intensely because there's layers of fuel,” Acuña said.

Like Quinn-Davidson, Acuña wasn’t ready to make specific predictions about fires to come.

But John Abatzoglou, a professor of climatology at UC Merced, said the temperatures and snowpack conditions this year offer a glimpse of California in the latter decades of this century, as fossil fuel use continues to drive global temperatures higher.

How this year’s fires will play out will depend on when, where and how wind, heat, fuel and ignitions combine. But it foreshadows the consequences of a warmer California for water and fire under climate change.

“This,” Abatzoglou said, “is yet another stress test for the future in the state.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.