On Tuesday, California Attorney General Rob Bonta held a press conference about findings from a new report on conditions in immigration detention facilities.
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00:00Well, thank you and good morning. Thanks for joining us today. We are here to talk about
00:04this report, Immigration Detention in California, our fourth report from the California DOJ
00:10pursuant to our statutory duty to conduct regular reports. We're announcing today its release
00:19and going to talk about some of what we found in this report on immigration detention facilities
00:26operating in California where non-citizens are detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement,
00:33or ICE. In this report, we detailed the conditions of confinement at the six immigration detention
00:42facilities in the state. All are privately operated by groups like GEO and CoreCivic, MTC. It's critical
00:52that more than ever, with the federal administration's efforts to eliminate oversight
00:58and overcrowd these facilities, that we shine a light on what's happening inside, on the conditions
01:07of confinement, on where standards of care are falling short, where they're falling short of
01:15the standards of care, especially when the president is pushing an inhumane campaign of mass immigration
01:20enforcement. This work is critical. So before we dive in, I'd like to thank my colleagues at DOJ,
01:28in particular our Civil Rights Enforcement Section and Research Services, for putting this report
01:32together. I have Kelly and Vilma with me here as well, who were instrumental in doing this work,
01:37engaged in the inspections and putting together the report that we are presenting to you today.
01:42And here in California, as always, we're focused on the facts. We're focused on data.
01:46They are our North Star, and our findings make it clear that these private immigration detention
01:52facilities need significant improvement to address the needs of the people held in their facilities.
02:00My office is focused on ensuring accountability and transparency. One way we're doing that is by
02:07arming the public with information. Building off the focus of our previous reports, which offered a
02:14comprehensive review of a number of different issues, including conditions of confinement,
02:19the standard of care provided to detained individuals, COVID-19, pandemic response protocols,
02:26and due process protections at detention facilities operating in the state. This report, again,
02:33our fourth report, examines these matters and is comprehensive, covers all of the issues. But in
02:38addition, it takes a deeper dive. It hones in on mental health challenges because that issue was
02:43flagged in prior reports, and we wanted to go deeper and share more detail about that particular
02:49issue. So you'll see a lot about the mental health care in these facilities, or rather lack thereof,
02:56and I'll share some of the details about that shortly. We found that this focused review was necessary
03:02because our previous findings identified inadequate mental health care services at the detention
03:07facilities, and that's particularly concerning, of course, because those facilities are working
03:14with a population that's at high risk for adverse mental health outcomes. With support from correctional and
03:21health care experts, my team conducted a review of the six immigration detention facilities in California,
03:28and just to go over those quickly, Golden State Annex and Mesa Verde in Kern County,
03:33Adelanto Detention Facility and Desert View Annex in San Bernardino County, and Imperial Regional Detention
03:39Facility in Imperial County, and finally the Ote Mesa Detention Center in San Diego County, which I
03:47actually personally visited back in 2021 when I was first became Attorney General. We toured each facility
03:55as part of this report and closely reviewed and analyzed the logs, the policies, the detainee records,
04:01and other documentation. We also interviewed detention staff and 154 detained individuals
04:08from the various facilities, and I'll just say that what we found was alarming.
04:16At certain facilities, detained individuals were over-disciplined, including for simply making a
04:22complaint. At some facilities, there were lapses in ensuring detained individuals were received,
04:27receiving treatment for infectious diseases, and the quality and timeliness of diagnostic health care
04:33was severely lacking. This means that not only did issues from our previous findings persist,
04:41have not been cured, have not been transformed, have not been addressed, but when we dove even deeper
04:47into these facilities, we recognized it was also severely impacting the mental health of detained
04:51individuals. Starting with the fact that medical and mental health records contained significant
04:57inaccuracies that impacted care. Record keeping and maintenance and review of health care files at all six
05:04facilities were deficient. And without these records, providers aren't able to create and implement adequate
05:11treatment plans. We also identified weaknesses in suicide prevention and intervention strategies in every facility.
05:17These strategies are necessary because of the high suicide risk in detained populations.
05:25At different facilities, we identified disproportionate use of force against individuals with mental health
05:32diagnoses. And staff appeared to over-utilize discipline and use of force. ICE standards of care are supposed to
05:41require staff to consider mental health conditions prior to engaging in calculated use of force incidents.
05:46In addition to this, facilities didn't conduct mental health reviews required by ICE's detention standards
05:54before placing people in solitary confinement. And that's important because some detained people spent
06:02periods of several months to over a year in conditions of isolation, which is harmful for any detained person,
06:10but presents particular risk to those with underlying mental health conditions. At some facilities,
06:15people with mental health conditions were placed in isolation more frequently and for longer periods of time.
06:23None of the facilities consistently offered adequate psychotherapy services. While all facilities offered psychiatry,
06:31psychiatry alone isn't enough to support a mental health program, particularly when serving a population
06:36with high rates of depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD. My team and I are highly concerned by
06:45the Mesa Verde facilities pat-down search policy, where detained persons were subjected to pat-down searches any time they left their housing unit.
06:58Detained individuals described invasive searches that had a chilling effect on their decisions about whether or not they wanted to leave their unit
07:05to receive medical and mental health services or even meals. So they were intimidated into not even getting their meals or getting their health care or their mental health services.
07:19This pat-down policy also resulted in allegations of sexual assault and numerous complaints from detained people against facility staff.
07:29And finally, detention facilities didn't consistently satisfy their obligations to support detained people to ensure that mental health conditions didn't negatively impact their immigration outcomes.
07:40For example, my office received reports that detained people appeared for court without having received prescribed medication or other needed treatment,
07:50which meant they couldn't meaningfully participate in their own immigration hearings.
07:56In California, detained people who have serious mental health illnesses and impairments are entitled to legal representation.
08:02And these facilities often didn't adequately inform people of this right.
08:07Under the Trump administration, we expect immigration enforcement and detention to increase across the country and including in California.
08:15The number of individuals held in California's facilities has spiked already from around 2,300 detainees during our 2023 review to around 3,100 individuals held in detention as of this month in 2025.
08:31So from 2,300 to 3,100, this number will only continue to skyrocket as a result of the president's inhumane immigration policies.
08:42A DOJ's and DOJ's report of California's immigration detention facility shows that previously identified issues have persisted, as I mentioned earlier,
08:51and will only worsen as detention numbers increase.
08:55Our findings also reveal that these detention facilities need drastic improvements to address the disregard of the mental health needs of people held there.
09:04So it's a sobering and stark and dark picture that we saw when we conducted our inspections.
09:13And much that is not being done that is substandard and much that needs to be done to get to the appropriate standards of care and appropriate conditions of confinement
09:25in the six immigration detention centers privately run here in California.
09:30At DOJ, it's our mission to ensure safe and dignified and just living conditions for all our residents,
09:36including people who are detained at immigration detention facilities.
09:40The new federal administration has been volatile, and while we don't know exactly what's to come,
09:50one of the certainties of this administration is uncertainty.
09:54While we don't know exactly what's to come in the next few years,
09:56we do know that we're better off when we let the facts and the data guide us,
10:00and that's what we're presenting to you, to California, to policy leaders in our report.
10:06And these reports come at a critical time.
10:09DOJ has published, again, four reports so far.
10:11We'll continue to review and report on what we see in immigration detention centers
10:16because justice relies on and demands transparency.
10:21So we will do our job to provide that needed and necessary transparency.
10:26Before I close, I want to take a moment to thank my team who made this report possible,
10:31and then I'll open it up to any questions that you might have.
10:32And now I am happy to take any questions you might have.
11:01Yeah?
11:02I assume you guys are trying to do the report.
11:05Did the group try to prevent the investigators from going into facilities,
11:09or did they delay or cause problems for the state investment system
11:13or access to the workers in their collections?
11:17I'll say, maybe I'll make some comments,
11:20and then do you want to add something after I make these comments?
11:22This report is coming out in 2025.
11:27Our last report was in 2022.
11:31So part of that was due to us making sure we had all the information we needed to provide,
11:39to present the report, write it, make sure that we were covering all the bases.
11:43So maybe I'll let my team members who are engaged directly with the for-private companies
11:51that run these immigration detention centers share a little more, if you wish.
11:57Yes.
11:58In the report, you will see that we did have some difficulties getting information,
12:01particularly from geo-facilities.
12:03That's not something new.
12:05We have documented that in our prior reports.
12:06Willma Palmasolana.
12:12Thank you, Willma.
12:14Yes, sir.
12:15You mentioned that someone who's been waiting for a whole discipline,
12:19you can kind of beat those in the back,
12:21and then one of the concerns, speaking with county members,
12:27that have people detained in the detention centers,
12:30they say they don't often get the treatment or they don't often get the medicine that they need.
12:34Some people go in with, you know, a very special need for medicine.
12:40And so what can you do or what are you going to do in the report
12:44to ensure that these people get like that on education?
12:48You can go first.
12:49It's too much.
12:50Yeah, yeah.
12:50So on the over-disciplining question, the first question,
12:53I'm going to let one of my colleagues talk about that in a second,
12:55but let me take your second question first.
12:58I've been very involved in this issue from before the time I became the Attorney General of the State of California.
13:02I authored a bill called AB 32, which looked at these for-profit private immigration detention centers
13:09as well as for-profit private prisons and reviewed the conditions therein
13:15and determined that the incentives are all wrong for providing adequate and appropriate care,
13:20including health care, including the things that you've mentioned,
13:22like providing medications and access to health care and the medicine that those that are in the detention centers need.
13:32The whole incentive is to cut services and minimize staffing
13:38and minimize responsiveness in order to maximize profit.
13:44And so it is a system that's broken fundamentally, in my opinion, and the incentives are all wrong.
13:53And so it is absolutely no surprise, though it is no less tragic,
13:57that what you have just said is happening inside these facilities.
14:00And that's what our report details in multiple ways.
14:04And so I had a bill that became the law of the state of California
14:07that banned for-profit private prisons and for-profit private immigration detention centers.
14:12For-profit private prisons are still banned by that law, AB 32.
14:16But the federal administration challenged the for-profit private detention center ban part of the bill.
14:22And this office, the California DOJ, defended the bill in court.
14:27And unfortunately, the court found that that ban was not something that could continue to be legally enforceable.
14:35So the detention centers are allowed to exist.
14:37But we do hope that the, in terms of your what can we do about it,
14:42what can we do about the fact that people aren't getting access to health care or their prescribed medicines,
14:47that is the whole point of this report.
14:50We are setting a light on it.
14:51We are daylighting this fact and this unacceptable set of circumstances
14:55so that policymakers, including those in Congress and the federal government,
14:59know what's happening in these facilities that federal tax dollars fund.
15:03And if they think it's appropriate, and I can't see how they would,
15:05for people who need medicine to not get medicine,
15:08then they can continue the status quo.
15:12But if they think it needs to be changed
15:14and that people deserve a level of humanity and decency
15:18and appropriate standard of care, then they can make the changes
15:22because, as policymakers, it is in their jurisdiction to do so.
15:27So over-disciplined examples, I'll let one of my teammates take that one.
15:36And thank you for the question.
15:37We reviewed, as A.G. Bonto discussed, we spoke with detained individuals.
15:44We also reviewed files that showed reasons for discipline,
15:48lengths of time that people were disciplined.
15:50So there are a number of different anecdotal ones.
15:53I'll raise one in particular.
15:55We did talk about people receiving discipline for making complaints
15:59or for otherwise exercising their rights.
16:02And this example actually goes to the original question about GEO Group as well.
16:07There was a period of time that a number of detainees were on hunger strike
16:10to protest the low wages that were associated with the voluntary work program.
16:15It was just a dollar a day.
16:18And there was a calculated use of force used against them.
16:22These detainees were transferred to another facility out of state
16:25in response to this hunger strike and related to GEO Group.
16:30This was a use of force that they did not report to California DOJ when we were inspecting,
16:36nor did they report to DHS, OIG, when they were inspecting.
16:40And we both found out about it otherwise.
16:42But despite asking for records of those uses of force, we did not receive them.
16:47So that's a particularly egregious example.
16:49But there are a number of similar examples where detainees reported to us
16:52of having engaged in regular behaviors but receiving discipline for such things.
16:58So the inspections were in the calendar year of 2023, and the records included 2023 and look back as far as 2021.
17:26So 2021 to 2023 for records, 2023 for inspections.
17:31Okay.
17:32Understanding that we're talking about the numbers in 2023, what is your sense of these conditions happening currently at ICE facilities?
17:42More of the same.
17:43I mean, the trajectory that we've seen in all of our reports, this is our fourth report,
17:46nothing has changed except for things getting worse.
17:49Issues that we flag are not getting addressed.
17:51Conditions of confinement continue to be substandard.
17:54We did a deep dive, of course, into mental health to show and reveal all the different ways the mental health care conditions are substandard.
18:04And we think that with the march of time as well as the increase in volume, it's only going to get worse.
18:11They are not able to provide medicine that is prescribed to patients.
18:16They are not able to provide the reviews of patients that is needed.
18:23If they can't do it now, how are they going to do it when the numbers increase, unless they make some drastic changes?
18:28I think Congress is really important in their role.
18:51They have the power of the purse.
18:52They can appropriate funding.
18:53They can renew contracts or not.
18:58They can put conditions on contracts that require certain standards to be met and conditions to be achieved within these facilities.
19:07So I think Congress is really important.
19:09Our congressional delegation is someone who I would speak to, given my relationship with them.
19:13But Congress across the country has a role in making sure that the health, safety, and welfare of the people that are touched by the investments that they make
19:24and the funds that they appropriate, that it's at an appropriate, humane level that is current with the existing standards of practice.
19:36My last question, moving forward, is moving forward, forward-looking, when do you anticipate you'll start on your next report?
19:48What do you anticipate that that report will focus on?
19:52Great question.
19:52And maybe, again, I'll ask my colleagues about the second part of that question.
19:56But we're always in motion.
19:57So when we're just at different parts of a report, either finishing and presenting this report to all of you and talking about it
20:06and answering your questions so that you know what's inside, or starting the next one and starting to schedule our next set of inspections
20:12and get our experts together and start requesting and reviewing documents.
20:19As you can tell, there are hundreds and thousands of hours of staff review time and work to do it all.
20:26So it sort of never ends.
20:28And so we will be moving from, you know, a conclusion of this report into the beginning of our fifth report.
20:36But I'll let my team members talk about what might be focused on in the next report.
20:44Well, AB 103 requires us to focus on the conditions of confinement, the standard of care, and due process.
20:51And given everything that we're seeing right now with regards to due process,
20:54where we'll be looking at everything, we will have a particular focus on that.
20:58And as the AG mentioned, we never stop.
21:01So we are already planning for the next set of reviews.
21:04AB 103 sunset on July 1st of 2027.
21:07But we will continue doing the reports for as long as the legislature wants us to continue doing them.
21:12Sir, over the past few months, I've spoken to three different tourists who have been denied entry to the San Diego border
21:18and then placed in detention in San Diego.
21:22In one case, one of the tourists who put the solitary confinement,
21:25all three of them told me they had no idea when they were going to write that out.
21:28So behind our stories, can you hear your reaction to tourists being detained in San Diego?
21:33Sure.
21:38Shocking, though sadly not surprising for these detention centers.
21:43I'm not really surprised by any of the completely unacceptable practices, conditions, examples,
21:54unfortunately, because that's the reputation they've earned through their own conduct for years.
22:00But certainly they need to be held accountable for the conditions that they provide
22:07and any rights that they're violating.
22:10Those whose rights are violated should be vindicated.
22:13And perhaps some of those tourists that you've just discussed have rights that have been violated
22:18by these detention centers and can seek relief and remedy in court.
22:22And as Attorney General, is there anything you can do to ensure contingent and retreating people in these detention centers?
22:28We've had several reports come out over the years.
22:31Here we are today with the end of the month.
22:33Yeah, you know, as I mentioned before, I did that as a legislator.
22:40California did that by voting for my legislation and making it the law of the state of California.
22:45They thought the conditions and the practices inside these detention centers were so bad,
22:50they should be completely prohibited.
22:52And unfortunately, that was struck down.
22:54So because these are federal detention centers, there is a limit on what I can do,
23:00what the California legislature can do.
23:04The authority rests more with the federal government, particularly Congress.
23:09Our California congressional delegation, I know, is very interested in this report.
23:15They have reached out to me, members of that delegation have reached out to me in the past
23:18to get input on what is in our report.
23:22We wrote a letter to our congressional delegation as they were considering contracts with these
23:28for-profit private operators for these facilities.
23:31And I know that they were very shocked by what we shared about what was happening inside.
23:37So our role here is more to shine the light, provide the report, arm policymakers who want evidence-based policy
23:45and data-driven policy with the evidence, with the data, so that they can do what's right
23:49and what's humane and what's fair and what's appropriate.
23:52So Congress really will take the ball and take the baton from us to take action.
23:59If you can, could you speak specifically about your findings that course said in Otay Mesa?
24:09Do you guys want to do that at all?
24:13Yes, anything more specific?
24:15Yeah.
24:16I think you said what we saw here.
24:20What was it you wanted to do?
24:21Okay.
24:21Okay.
24:23Focusing on the mental health focus of this report in particular,
24:27Otay Mesa had no psychologists, and so nobody was able to receive therapy.
24:34They did have psychiatry, as every facility did, but I think the biggest thing that hampered
24:39Otay Mesa in providing mental health care was that they had very low staff and were, as a result,
24:45not able to really offer any psychotherapy whatsoever and only some psychiatry
24:51to detained individuals who were in that facility.
24:55Is that common?
25:02Yes and no.
25:04Some facilities did not have any psychologists or any social workers or anyone able to provide counseling.
25:13There was always psychiatry, but sometimes there was the opportunity for some therapy,
25:19although even facilities that did have therapy, it would always, would provide very short sessions,
25:24which we had concerns about whether the therapeutic effect was really possible to come from the amount of time
25:30that psychologists or other counselors were spending with detained individuals,
25:34and some just did not have the staffing to provide even that.
25:38How much of a difference can a psychologist make that facility?
25:42Why is it important that it happens by colleges?
25:48As Attorney General Bonta mentioned, given that among the highest number of, sorry,
25:56the most common conditions that you see among this population is post-traumatic stress disorder
26:02and depression, and both of those treatment requires both psychiatry and therapy.
26:09There's no pill that cures a trauma.
26:13You really need to process the trauma.
26:14You need to have a safe space with a trusted counselor, and that's not something that's available.
26:20And of course, it's always hard to provide these services in conditions of confinement.
26:25That's not going to feel safe just by definition.
26:28But what can be offered by someone who is a counselor is maybe the detained person can even just find an hour a week
26:36that they're sitting with someone who will listen to them and treat them with the respect that you need
26:42in order to go through a healing process, and that's not something that's happening.
26:46And I think it can be a question of life and death, particularly if you're thinking about depression
26:51and suicidality associated with depression.
26:54I think that's something that's going to be very associated with how many detainees are there.
27:19We did find, when we visited the units, you would always see that there were a certain number
27:24of tablets and phones, and so certainly as the population increases, that's going to be more difficult.
27:31A problem that we definitely did see was that a lot of the services, both to contact people in the outside world
27:37or to make requests to file grievances to ask for a medical appointment, were done through the tablets.
27:43And many of the tablets, you need to understand English, French, or Spanish in order to even understand the instructions for the tablet.
27:51And so then detain people who speak any of the other languages, the many languages that are represented in the facilities,
27:57didn't have as easy a time, needed to have somebody help them even get into the tablet in order to ask for anything that they needed.
28:06Yes.
28:07Yes.
28:08Yes.
28:09Yes.
28:10Yes.
28:11Yes.
28:12Yes.
28:13Yes.
28:14Yes.
28:15Yes.
28:16Yes.
28:17Yes.
28:18Yes.
28:19Yes.
28:20Yes.
28:21Yes.
28:22Yes.
28:23Yes.
28:25Yes.
28:27Yes.
28:28is California, but, you know, is that kind of like the law of the land now, and does
28:35the AG's office plan to do anything to enforce that or monitor that, and then just kind of
28:41your reaction to it? We saw where to go yesterday just go up, I'll send the board to go up to
28:47Kern County and do the same kind of thing of just stopping anybody that they think might
28:51be undocumented, and so the judge just told them this morning they can't do that.
28:56Yeah. In my view, that's existing law, and the judge's order reflects existing law and
29:07makes it very specific to conduct that presumably was presented to the judge, and so they wanted
29:14to, the judge wanted to issue a specific order, but you generally, before you can stop or detain
29:19anybody, you need either a reasonable suspicion or probable cause to enter homes or to effectuate
29:25an arrest, oftentimes a search warrant, that's sort of foundational Fourth Amendment U.S.
29:32constitutional law. You can't racially profile people, you can't indiscriminately just stop
29:38people and search them without any appropriate reasonable suspicion or probable cause or without
29:43a warrant. So, sounds like the judge had seen enough and wanted to issue an order. This is
29:50something that we've been focusing on since before the inauguration. We have always said
29:55that the federal government may lawfully enforce immigration law. They have the right to do that.
30:03They have resources to do that, including ICE, but they may not break the law. They may not invoke
30:09without authority certain laws like the Alien Enemies Act or the Insurrection Act and use the military
30:17inappropriately on American soil. They can't violate your Fourth Amendment rights. They can't
30:22racially profile you. They can't detain you endlessly if they were ever able to even detain you in the
30:28first place. So, there's rules. And this judge is reminding the federal immigration enforcers about what
30:39those rules are, presumably in view of the conduct that he or she has seen.
30:45I'm aware of what the Trump administration had announced yesterday. And honestly, you know, part of
31:03what he was trying to announce was his record on immigration enforcement. And he has really failed to
31:12accomplish what he's stated, what he has indicated he wanted to accomplish. He's deported less people
31:22than Biden. And he said he wanted to have a mass deportation machine, the likes of which America has never
31:29seen before. So, failure already within 100 days based on that promise. He also said he was going to focus
31:35on undocumented, violent criminals. And on day one, he went after US citizens with an executive order to revoke
31:45the birthright citizenship, a US constitutional right. He was able to successfully deport a two-year-old citizen
31:52last week. And has gone after lawful programs like temporary protected status and asylum and refugee. So, he's failing.
32:02But he's trying to present some success because he's a salesman, as he did yesterday. And he also, part of
32:10that was he was going to have his team research and identify the different sanctuary jurisdictions, which are
32:17all public and well-known. There are decisions made in public to decide what sort of approach you're going to have
32:25in your state. There's a law that's been in the books since 2017 in California, SB 54, our California Values Act,
32:34which is our decision to use our limited and valuable law enforcement resources to fight crime, to go after murderers and
32:45rapists and folks involved in robbery and fentanyl and hate crimes and human trafficking, organized retail crime, and not to do the job of the
32:53federal government for civil immigration enforcement when they have huge departments like ICE that do this already.
33:00A very unremarkable proposition that we want to focus on crime and health, safety, and welfare of our people.
33:07It's like if someone had a job in an office, a worker, and they went over to another worker, and they said,
33:17hey, will you do my job for me? And that person said, no, I respectfully decline to do your job for you. I'm going to focus on my job.
33:26But you're welcome to do your job. In that example, that's what the federal government is trying to say to the state of California.
33:34They want us to do their job for them when they can just do their job. We are focused on other priorities in our state,
33:41including mostly fighting crime. So we have a law on this issue. This issue is addressed in Trump administration 1.0,
33:51U.S. versus California. It has already upheld our California Values Act, SB 54. It's completely lawful.
33:58The idea that he's going to go after us for a completely lawful position that the Constitution and the Tenth Amendment gives us authority to take is,
34:10like many of his other approaches, crazy, unlawful, and unfounded in any legal authority.
34:21Besides, it's just what he wants to do. He wants to go after people that disagree with him.
34:27He's done it with attorneys. He's done it with judges. He's done it with blue states.
34:31And seemingly, he wants to do it again with those folks that, in his words, he calls sanctuary.
34:37But it's all right. We've been thinking about this for months before the election.
34:44From the election to the inauguration, from the inauguration to now, we're ready.
34:48What he announced yesterday is wholly unremarkable.
34:52Question.
34:54I think we're going to see a lot more impacted people because we will see an increase in population inside the detention centers.
35:12Based on what we've seen in the past, they will even have a harder time meeting minimum standards of care.
35:18And based on what this Trump administration has already demonstrated with its inability to provide legal due process to individuals,
35:29like deporting a two-year-old U.S. citizen, like deporting an individual who has an order saying he can't be deported,
35:39and not bringing him back home even today after he's been in another country wrongfully deported for weeks.
35:46We anticipate additional violations of due process.
35:50And so, as mentioned before by my colleagues, I think the next report will focus quite a bit on due process,
35:57or rather violations thereof and failures to provide adequate due process.
36:03Thank you, everybody.