California gave counties power to inspect ICE detention centers. They’re not using it

Three of the four California counties empowered to inspect federal immigration detention facilities have not done so, and the fourth has conducted only basic reviews of food this year, records obtained by CalMatters show.

If they were checking, local officials would be providing an additional layer of oversight at a time when the number of people held in detention centers has surged because of the Trump administration’s crackdown on unauthorized immigrants.

Two state laws provide state, county and local officials the authority to review health and safety conditions in privately-run immigration detention facilities.

The first, passed during the first Trump administration, allows the attorney general’s office to inspect for violations of national detention standards and health or safety issues. The AG’s office has used that power to publish annual reports on conditions inside detention centers, including one this year that alleged deficient mental health care.

The second, a 2024 law, empowers counties to inspect privately run detention facilities. In the past, counties have inspected jails and prisons, finding mold, rats, and other health violations. But county health officials have not used that power to inspect federal immigration detention facilities.

In Kern County — where three detention centers operate — the health officer, through an attorney, has said in testimony before a federal judge that he has “no intention” of exercising his new authority to inspect the facilities to ensure they comply with state and local health standards.

The companies that manage the detention centers through contracts with the federal government say they take seriously their responsibility to adhere to federal standards and uphold human rights. One unsuccessfully sued to overturn the new California inspection law, alleging it was unnecessary and an intrusion on the federal government’s authority.

More than 5,700 people are in immigration detention in California, an 84% increase since the spring. On April 16, there were 3,100 people detained in the state, according to the California Attorney General’s latest report.

Advocates for detainees are drawing attention to what they describe as unhealthy conditions, including in the state’s newest detention center. It opened in Kern County without proper permits or a business license as required by state law, according to California City’s mayor.

CoreCivic’s 2,560-bed immigration detention center there sits on 70 acres in the Mohave desert about 80 miles east of Bakersfield.

A detainee who goes by the name of Loba has been locked up in the California City facility since Aug. 28. She said some detainees have not received the medication they need for more than 20 days. She asked CalMatters not to fully identify her because she feared retaliation by CoreCivic guards for speaking with a reporter.

“There’s a lack of interest on the part of CoreCivic to care for individuals with diabetes problems and people who have heart problems or any other health conditions. They’re really not caring for detainees and not giving us the proper medical treatment in detention,” Loba said.

She said she observed five people who needed emergency care because they could not get medication. Another California City detainee described similar conditions in an interview with CalMatters.

Ryan Gustin, a spokesperson for CoreCivic, said the site has robust medical and mental health care on site, including around-the-clock access to those services. He said those services adhere to “standards set forth by our government partners.”

“There are no delays in individuals getting their prescription medications,” Gustin said.

Counties reviewing inspection law

In the four counties where Immigration and Customs Enforcement has detention facilities, only one county health department conducts the kind of inspections allowed under the 2024 law. A San Bernardino County spokesperson said the county has the authority to inspect for disease control and “general health and sanitation,” but he later said the reviews are limited to the facilities’ food processing and service.

Officials from two other counties said they’ll use their new authority to respond to specific concerns, but that they had not yet done any inspections.

The Imperial County health department said it would respond to a complaint “if the facility falls within our legal authority to inspect.” The San Diego County health department said only that it “is exploring how to effectively operationalize this law in its jurisdiction.”

California has seven immigration detention centers: Adelanto ICE Processing Center and Desert View Annex in San Bernardino County; The Golden State Annex, Mesa Verde ICE Processing facility, and the California City detention facility in Kern County; The Imperial Regional Detention Facility in Imperial County; and the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego County.

ICE pays the for-profit prison company GEO Group to operate four of the centers: Adelanto, Desert View Annex, Golden State Annex and Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center.

MTC manages the detention center in Imperial County, while CoreCivic manages Otay Mesa and California City.

The 2024 law gives local health officials the authority to inspect private detention facilities as they deem necessary, but it does not require them to do so unless requested by local lawmakers or law enforcement. And it does not specify exactly what county health inspectors should check, despite lawmakers and cosponsors of the bill citing “detainees facing challenges in accessing timely medical attention” as one of the reasons the new law was necessary.

As the bill moved forward, lawmakers also cited a May 2020 COVID-19 outbreak at the Otay Mesa Detention Center that resulted in more than 300 staff and detained individuals becoming infected. “Conditions in these facilities not only affect the lives of those detained, but also impact the surrounding communities,” wrote the bill’s author, state Sen. María Elena Durazo, a Democrat from Los Angeles.

It passed without any recorded opposition and with unanimous votes in the Legislature.

GEO Group sued to challenge the law, arguing it was unconstitutional because it stepped on the federal government’s authority to manage detention centers. By extension, GEO claimed intergovernmental immunity as a contractor.

“This case involves the latest in a string of attempts by the State of California to ban federal immigration enforcement in the state, or so significantly burden such efforts as to drive federal agencies and contractors involved in that constitutionally-mandated national security function from California,” GEO attorneys argued in the suit, which was filed in the U.S District Court for the Eastern District of California.

In federal court this year, Kern County attorney Jeremy McNutt said county health officer Kristopher Lyon doesn’t want to use the new law to inspect the Mesa Verde and Golden State Annex facilities in his county. McNutt said Lyon would inspect the facility if the governor ordered him to, but otherwise, he “has no intention of inspecting the facility whatsoever.”

“If he’s not ordered to do it then he has no intention of doing it, doesn’t really care to have the right to do it or not,” McNutt said of Lyon. “We don’t believe he has a duty to inspect the facility … There is no commitment or desire to inspect.”

A federal judge threw out the lawsuit in May, letting the law stay in place. Lyon did not respond to a request for comment about whether his position has changed in light of an influx of new detainees and the opening of a new detention center.

Detainees gather in a common area at one of the Adelanto ICE Processing Center housing units in Adelanto on Aug. 28, 2019.

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Chris Carlson

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AP Photo

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Adelanto cleared county review

In the only county making use of its powers to access the detention centers, a San Bernardino County inspector spent about an hour on May 29 at the Adelanto center for food and service issues. The facility passed, according to inspection reports.

San Bernardino County inspector Mary Ann Glass made no notes or comments, and she found no deficiencies or violations at the facility, the paperwork shows.

“Yes, our inspections are limited to food processing and service,” confirmed San Bernardino health department spokesperson Francis Delapaz.

Adelanto is where a 39-year-old detainee was being held shortly before his death in September.

Internal emails obtained by the Los Angeles Times show that about two weeks after arriving at Adelanto in August, Ismael Ayala-Uribe reported symptoms including a cough, fever, and severe pain. Staff flagged his condition as potentially life-threatening and last week escorted him to the facility’s medical center in a wheelchair, the newspaper reported. About an hour and a half later, medical staff sent him back to his dormitory. He was not sent to a hospital until three days later, where he died.

Adelanto detainees, who spoke with CalMatters on condition that they not be named because they fear retaliation, said the sites are crowded, and it’s taking a long time to access medications and medical care.

An immigrant who was arrested in an ICE raid in Los Angeles in June and spent more than a month at Adelanto, said it took three days for him to be assigned a bed when he arrived at the facility.

During that time, he wasn’t allowed a shower or a change of clothes and wasn’t permitted to call his family. He said the dorm he ultimately slept in doubled in population, to its full capacity of about 90 people. Staff, he said, asked for volunteers to keep the walkways and windows clean, and detainees waited longer than three days to hear back about medical requests.

“Everyone was getting sick with coughs, the flu, with the air being cold all day,” he said. “Almost 50% of the people were like that.”

A Geo Group spokesperson said the company provides around-the-clock access to medical care.

“Geo strongly rejects these baseless allegations,” spokesman Christopher Ferreira said in an email to CalMatters. “Our contracts also set strict limits on a facility’s capacity. Simply put, our facilities are never overcrowded.”

California tried to ban for-profit detention

The federal government’s own inspections indicate allegations of abuse and possible lapses in suicide prevention at the Adelanto facility. In 2024, the Office of Detention Oversight found one detainee who alleged an officer inappropriately squeezed his chest and genitals during a pat-down search, and another told inspectors he had thoughts of self-harming because of the poor conditions inside the facility.

State inspectors released a report in April that documented similar issues with conditions across the state. Staffing shortages, poor coordination between medical and mental health care providers, and widespread problems with record-keeping contributed to the risks for detainees, the report stated.

Attorney General Rob Bonta acknowledged that state and local oversight over detention facilities is limited, particularly after the state in 2019 attempted to ban private for-profit facilities, a bill Bonta authored as a legislator. The 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals found the law unconstitutional.

Legislators "thought the conditions and practices inside these detention centers were so bad that they should be completely prohibited. And unfortunately, that was struck down,” Bonta told CalMatters.

“Because these are federal detention centers, there is a limit on what I can do, what the California legislature can do. The authority rests more with the federal government, particularly Congress,” he said.

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