Immigrants Sue Trump Administration Over Inhumane Conditions at California’s Largest Immigration Detention Center
Lawsuit claims that people held at California City Detention Facility are subjected to abuse, excessive isolation, denial of basic necessities including medical care
SAN FRANCISCO – Seven people detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sued the Trump administration over inhumane conditions at California’s largest immigration detention center, the privately owned California City Detention Facility located in Kern County.
The plaintiffs, who seek to represent a class of all people held at California City, describe in their :
- Punishing conditions including dirty housing units, inadequate food and water, very cold temperatures, and restrictions on family visits
- Enforced isolation caused by frequent lockdowns, no access to programming, and excessive solitary confinement
- Terrifyingly inadequate medical care that deprives people of critical treatment for cancer, life-threatening heart conditions, diabetes and other serious medical needs
- Neglect of people with disabilities including failing to provide sign language interpreters, wheelchairs, and other necessities people need to live safely
- Encroachment on freedom of religion, including confiscation of prayer mats, head coverings and even holy texts
- Denial of access to counsel, with weeks-long delays for legal calls and long waits for in-person visits
California City previously operated as a state prison managed by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. ICE with the for-profit company CoreCivic to re-open the prison as an immigration detention center this year. Since its re-opening, it has come under intense criticism, with people detained at California City the facility as a “torture chamber,” and community members outrage over its deplorable conditions. Detained people also have engaged in numerous sit-ins and hunger strikes, including in mid-September, when over 100 people across several housing pods engaged in to demand an end to many of the abuses the lawsuit challenges.
Sokhean Keo, a named plaintiff in the lawsuit, said, “I'm bringing this lawsuit to try to help end the suffering and pain that I see in here. ICE is playing with people's lives, and they treat people like they're trash, like they're nothing. Some of the people I'm detained with don't even have soap — they take showers without soap — and they're losing weight because they don't have enough to eat. This is bigger than me, but filing this lawsuit feels like something I can do to call for help for myself and everyone else here.”
The lawsuit, Gomez Ruiz, et al. v. ICE, was filed in the U.S. District Court of Northern California and seeks to redress violations of the First Amendment, Fifth Amendment, and the Rehabilitation Act. The plaintiffs are represented by the Prison Law Office, Keker Van Nest & Peters LLP, the Ƶ, and the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice.
Gustavo Guevara, also a named plaintiff, added, “No human being, immigrant or not, should be subjected to these horrendous conditions. I hope society becomes aware of the abuse, neglect, indifference, and the overall unjust treatment we are being subjected to, and does not turn a blind eye. It’s not right that because we’re immigrants they feel they can treat us this way.”
ICE began quietly people to the facility in late August. Just four weeks after its opening, Disability Rights California conducted a and found that California City “fails to meet people’s basic needs,” fails to “provide access to critical medical” care, and “employs staff who harass” detained people.
With 2,560 beds, the facility is the largest immigration detention center in California. At the time of filing, more than 800 people were detained in the facility. CoreCivic projects it will reach full capacity by early 2026 as ICE continues to admit new arrivals on a daily basis as part of the Trump administration’s unprecedented mass arrests of community members and expansion of ICE detention.
Additional quotes from co-counsel are as follows:
“The treatment of the people held in the California City facility is yet another example of ICE’s utter disregard for the rights and dignity of people in its custody,” said Kyle Virgien, senior staff attorney at the Ƶ’s National Prison Project. “Access to necessities like food, basic medical care, and counsel aren’t mere suggestions – they are constitutionally protected rights that all people in detention are entitled to.”
“Eight hundred people are currently locked up in the Mojave Desert in conditions no society should tolerate, and by all accounts, that number is about to triple,” said Tess Borden, supervising staff attorney at the Prison Law Office. “Our clients are bringing this lawsuit to seek constitutionally adequate conditions of confinement for the hundreds of people at California City and the hundreds more to come, and to shine a light onto the abuses occurring within the ever-expanding immigration detention system in our country.”
“What is happening at California City is punitive and unconstitutional,” emphasized Steven P. Ragland, partner at Keker, Van Nest & Peters LLP. “People held there are being denied basic human rights, dignity and due process, and we are committed to fixing these horrendous conditions and holding the government accountable.”
“As our phones are flooded with videos of federal agents arresting our neighbors with extreme violence and cruelty, the brave plaintiffs in this suit remind us through their constant struggle for justice that the abuse does not end there, but continues out of view of the cameras, behind the walls of places like California City Detention Facility,” said Priya Patel, Supervising Attorney at the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice.
The complaint is available here: