LOS ANGELES — A federal judge this week ordered ICE and the Department of Homeland Security to provide “constitutionally adequate health care” to people detained in California’s newest and largest immigration detention center.
In her Tuesday ruling, U.S. District Judge Maxine M. Chesney also required an external monitor be appointed to ensure compliance, including through review of medical records and on-site inspection and interviews with patients and staff at the California City Detention Facility in the Mojave Desert.
Chesney ordered the government to provide detainees with timely and confidential access to attorneys, temperature-appropriate clothing and blankets free of charge and access to adequate outdoor recreation spaces for at least an hour a day.
The ruling comes in the case of seven detainees who in November filed a federal class-action lawsuit in the Northern District of California against Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement alleging medical neglect, unsanitary living conditions and abusive treatment by the staff at the facility, which opened in August.
ICE and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the ruling. CoreCivic, which operates the facility, also did not immediately respond.
The lawsuit was brought by the Prison Law Office, the American Civil Liberties Union, the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice and Keker, Van Nest & Peters.
“The government wanted to grind the wheels of justice to a halt and continue its horrifying medical neglect and denial of fundamental needs like warm clothes and blankets, and meaningful access to attorneys to the more than one thousand souls languishing at this facility,” Steven Ragland, a Keker, Van Nest & Peters partner representing the plaintiffs, said in a statement.
“We are incredibly grateful that the Court appreciated the immediate, irreparable harm individuals at California City face and ordered meaningful relief.”
The former prison turned detention center has faced a growing number of complaints since it opened in August, as the Trump administration pushed to expand detention capacity nationwide.
At the time, the city manager warned CoreCivic “that the building is unsafe and violates the fire code because its construction prevents radio signals from transmitting from key areas,” the lawsuit pointed out.
By the next month, immigrants inside the 2,500-capacity facility launched a hunger strike protesting conditions.
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.
Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin previously told The Times that “no one is denied access to proper medical care.”
Last month, U.S. Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff conducted an oversight visit of the facility and decried the inadequacy of medical care there.
“The appointment of a monitor is hugely important because we have already in this case seen ICE violate a court order to provide one very sick man with appropriate medical care,” Cody Harris, Keker, Van Nest & Peters partner, said in a statement.
Harris said most of people held at the detention facility “have no criminal record whatsoever, and yet the government treats them worse than the highest-security criminals.”
“We will continue fighting to improve the conditions at California City until they comply with ICE’s constitutional obligations,” he said.
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