U.S. Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff on Tuesday decried the inadequacy of medical care within the state’s newest and largest immigration detention center.
The two California Democrats spent hours conducting an oversight visit of the California City Detention Facility on Tuesday, amid growing concerns over conditions inside and the Trump administration’s desire to increase the number of immigrants detained nationwide.
“I’m leaving here even more concerned than I was when I arrived,” Padilla said, as the detention facility, surrounded by barbed wire, loomed behind him. “The population here is only going to grow.”
Schiff said people told them the drinking water smells bad and sometimes has mold in it. “We heard from detainees who said there was mold in their food,” he said. “Many described getting stomach aches from drinking the water here.”
The two senators hope to bring more attention to the California City facility as the number of immigrants detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement continues to grow and Congress considers increasing funding to expand the number of detention beds across the country.
Following the fatal shooting Renee Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis this month, Democrats in the House and Senate are threatening to block the funding if the budget fails to include new policies curbing the agency’s power.
The bipartisan bill would keep ICE funded at $10 billion for the fiscal year that ends in September, while reducing the agency’s budget for enforcement and removal efforts.
“What we have seen from Kristi Noem’s Department of Homeland Security is frankly sick and un-American. ICE is out-of-control, terrorizing people, including American citizens, and actively making our communities less safe,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), vice chair of the U.S. Senate Committee for Appropriations said in a written statement.
“In this bill, Democrats defeated Republicans’ hard-fought push to give ICE an even bigger annual budget, successfully cut ICE’s detention budget and capacity, cut CBP’s budget by over $1 billion, and secured important, although still insufficient, new constraints on DHS.”
The California City facility became the focal point of legal and humanitarian controversy when it opened in August — part of a push by the Trump Administration to expand detention capacity nationwide.
In November, just three months after it began operating, seven detainees filed a federal class-action lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security and ICE, alleging medical neglect, unsanitary living conditions and abusive treatment by the staff.
The population of detained immigrants nationwide surpassed a high of 65,000 in November, according to TRAC, a nonpartisan research organization.
“Sewage bubbles up from the shower drains, and insects crawl up and down the walls of the cells,” the federal lawsuit claimed. “People are locked in concrete cells the size of a parking space for hours on end, and officers threaten them with violence and solitary confinement. Food is paltry and people go hungry.
“Temperatures are frigid; those who cannot afford to buy sweatshirts from the exorbitantly priced commissary suffer in the cold, some wearing socks on their arms as makeshift sleeves.”
The lawsuit, filed by Prison Law Office, American Civil Liberties Union, California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice and other advocacy groups, alleged that the facility limited access to lawyers, leaving detainees “largely incommunicado.”
In December, attorneys filed an emergency motion asking a federal judge to order ICE to provide lifesaving medical care to two plaintiffs at the facility. One man with a serious heart condition had not seen a cardiologist and the other needed needed urgent care related to what he feared was prostate cancer. ICE later agreed to provide medical care to the men.
CoreCivic, one of the largest private immigration detention companies in the country, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
But in a previous statement to the Times, Ryan Gustin, a spokesman for CoreCivic said that the safety, health and well-being of the individuals entrusted to our care is our top priority.”
“We take seriously our responsibility to adhere to all applicable federal detention standards in our ICE-contracted facilities, including the [California City facility.],” he said. “Our immigration facilities are monitored very closely by our government partners at ICE, and they are required to undergo regular review and audit processes to ensure an appropriate standard of living and care for all detainees.”
In an email response to the Times, Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, said the department has made more than 12,000 arrest — up from 10,000 in December —in Los Angeles since the stepped-up immigration enforcement operations began in June.
“Some of the most heinous criminal illegal aliens arrested include murderers, kidnappers, sexual predators, and armed carjackers,” she wrote. “Thanks to our brave law enforcement, California is safer with these thugs off their streets.”
In November, the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, reportedthat ICE has been primarily detaining people with no criminal history or pending charges. The institute found that, between Oct. 1 and Nov. 15, 73% of the 61,800 people booked into detention had no criminal convictions or pending criminal charges. Only 5% had convictions for violent crimes.
Last month, California Attorney General Rob Bonta sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security, citing “the dangerous and inadequate living conditions” at the facility.
“Earlier this year Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) opened this new facility in California, the largest in the state, without ensuring that the facility was adequately prepared to receive civil immigration detainees,” the letter stated.
The California Department of Justice conducted an initial inspection of the facility in November and “discovered serious problems with conditions at the facility and a lack of adequate medical care,” Bonta’s office said.
“Everyone has a right to dignity, safety, and respect. Earlier this year, we reported on unsafe and inadequate conditions at immigration detention facilities across California.”
According to Bonta’s office, key staff positions remained unfilled at the time of the visit and the facility “does not have enough medical doctors for its detainee population size.” The letter also noted that staff responsible for the day-to-day supervision of detainees “appear to be inexperienced and lack basic understanding of civil detention management principles.”
Bonta’s office said that “due to the significant number of staffing vacancies, [Child Care and Development Fund) reports being unable to provide contact visitation to any detainees, regardless of security classification level, which is a significant deprivation of support during a period of confinement, especially at a time when detainees are facing removal.”
More than a dozen people died last year in ICE custody, including Ismael Ayala-Uribe, 39, who died a month after being apprehended while working at the Fountain Valley Auto Wash, where he had worked for 15 years.
Earlier this month, Luis Beltrán Yanez-Cruz, a Honduran man who lived and worked in the U.S. for 26 years, died after being held at the Imperial Region Detention Facility in Calexico for more than a month. His family said he complained of deteriorating health conditions before his death.
Padilla said the senators’ visit to the California City facility was prompted by hearing “from constituents, from families of folks who have been detained about concerns of the conditions in a lot of these facilities.”
“When you walk inside these walls you experience a different trauma,” Schiff said. “You get to see what happens to folks who are apprehended by ICE.”
He said as far as he could tell, the vast majority of people inside “have no prior criminal history.” He said many they spoke with were picked up at immigration appointments.
“They were doing what they were supposed to do,” Schiff said. He said they talked to wives separated from husbands and their kids and the most frequent feedback they got “was the inadequacy of the medical care they were receiving.”
He said he talked to diabetic woman, who had been here two months, but had not received treatment for her diabetes.
“That is very frightening,” he said.
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