A lack of health care, not enough food and excessive use of pepper spray: Those are just some of the findings at lockups housing thousands of immigrants, detailed in a new report released by California officials.
Now the California Attorney General is telling Scripps News what he wants to see happen next.
Inspectors from the California Attorney General’s office spoke to about 200 immigrants locked up in private detention centers.
They discovered as the population of those jails grew, staff were overwhelmed. Conditions rapidly deteriorated and continue to get worse.
The new report details a lack of medical care, including at the Adelanto ICE detention center that we have been investigating. It’s where four detainees have died.
As part of our continuing ICE Inc. investigation, one mother talked to us about her son dying from a skin infection that was allowed to fester.
The attorney general’s office says many immigrants struggle to access medical care, and that in three cases, detainees weren’t able to get emergency help right away.
They also found inappropriate uses of pepper spray, including in confined areas, and inadequate food and clean drinking water.
One member of the AG’s staff personally observed murky water at Adelanto.
And they found trouble at California’s newest detention center, Cal City, saying it’s at “crisis level” of health care understaffing, a place where immigrants say it’s so cold they’re wearing socks as shirt sleeves to stay warm.
"Some of those interviews with detainees talking to my staff who conducted them they were difficult to to to engage in because these were tearful, painful recitations by detainees of what happened: Freezing cold throughout the night without a blanket, having undercooked food," said California Attorney General Rob Bonta.
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Scripps News' Patrick Terpstra: Is there still a money issue or is something else driving these substandard conditions?
Attorney General Rob Bonta: I don't think it's a money thing.
Bonta: I think it's a lack of oversight, a lack of accountability, a lack of Department of Homeland Security and ICE doing their job.
Bonta: These are for-profit private companies who want to maximize profit. So they cut on staffing, on training, on food, on water, on health care. And it shows.
The two main corporate owners of jails are disputing these findings, especially when it comes to health care.
GEO Group told Scripps News detainees have access to round the clock care and they quickly resolve issues that come up.
CoreCivic says they’re still reviewing this report but that all of their facilities adhere to federal detention standards, including for staffing. Medical care, they say, is a top priority.
Attorney General Bonta says he wants these companies and ICE to take action to improve conditions on their own.
But with these companies defending the care they give immigrants, he says he may have to try to compel them to do more.
"We're not waiting. We're already talking to our legislature about actions that we can take in the state of California to improve conditions for the folks inside who are being mistreated," Bonta said. "We still have Californians who are being mistreated, who are dying, who are not getting basics, who are getting inhumane, cruel treatment. And so we would consider all of our options for what we might do as well."
Since the report came out, Bonta says he has heard from state lawmakers who saw these findings about these detention centers and want to take action this year. Bonta says he is open to working with them on laws that would rein in ICE and these detention centers.
