Summary:
An independent monitor reported Monday that the California City detention center failed all eight healthcare requirements set by U.S. District Judge Maxine Chesney in February.
The 51-page report documents staffing shortages, incomplete intake screenings, delayed specialist referrals, chronic medication failures, and neglect of detainees with disabilities.
The inquiry is the first court-ordered examination of the full scope of medical care at any ICE facility in the country, according to counsel for the detained plaintiffs.
The findings land as ICE detention reaches record levels, with more than 65,000 people in custody nationwide as of July 11.
CALIFORNIA’S largest immigration detention center has violated every healthcare mandate a federal judge imposed on it five months ago, an independent monitor told the court Monday.
Dr. Muthusamy Anandkumar, the physician appointed to examine medical care at the California City detention center in the Mojave Desert north of Los Angeles, found the facility out of compliance with all eight areas of care identified in Judge Maxine Chesney’s February injunction. “The facility lacks a reliable system to consistently provide adequate health care, placing individuals at serious risk of both immediate and long-term harm,” he wrote in a 51-page report filed in federal court.
The stakes extend past one facility. Counsel for the detained plaintiffs describe the inquiry as the first court-ordered investigation of the full scope of medical care at any Immigration and Customs Enforcement site in the United States. Its findings arrive at the height of the Trump administration’s detention buildup, with more than 65,000 people in ICE custody as of July 11—a record that has intensified national scrutiny of overcrowding and medical care in the agency’s facilities. What the court does next in California City will signal how far federal judges can compel ICE to deliver the care the Constitution requires.
Anandkumar traced the failures to the facility’s design, not to isolated errors. “This pattern indicates broader problems in the facility’s health care delivery system rather than occasional lapses in care,” he wrote.
The case began with a class-action lawsuit filed in November by seven detained men who described “life-threatening” gaps in treatment. Their complaint alleged the facility withheld cancer diagnostics, interrupted insulin for diabetics, and denied basic accommodations to people with disabilities.
Chesney’s February order required the government to demonstrate that eight components of the facility’s health system function adequately: healthcare staffing; timely medical intake screenings; thorough primary care assessments; access to specialists; responsive emergency services; continuity of care after intake; timely delivery of prescribed medications; and a working “sick call” system for requesting treatment. To measure compliance, she appointed Anandkumar, a physician who served as a medical expert for the Department of Homeland Security and has audited ICE detention centers and county jail health systems.
His conclusions rest on a months-long inquiry: a review of 141 medical records, a three-day site visit in May, and interviews with 40 patients and facility staff.
The center occupies a former state prison and reopened as an ICE facility last year under a $130 million annual contract with CoreCivic, the private prison company, which is not a defendant in the lawsuit. Staff told the monitor the site was meant to hold people “in good health.” The population it received included many with complex medical needs.
Staffing shortages ran so deep that employees were pulled into clinical duties before completing orientation, and workers not yet fully trained were assigned to train others, the report found. Incomplete intake screenings risk missing “urgent or serious conditions,” allowing treatable illness to worsen. Doctors recorded “WNL”—within normal limits—in place of documented exam findings, and in some cases patients who reported specific symptoms received no documented examination of the affected body part.
“This is the most basic step in evaluating a medical complaint … This creates a risk that the very problem the patient came in with was not properly evaluated,” Anandkumar wrote.
Specialist referrals lapsed past deadlines recorded in patients’ own charts or were denied without documented reasons. Patients needing inpatient psychiatric treatment were left in detention until they “deteriorate” enough to be hospitalized, then returned “often with little lasting improvement,” the report said.
A wheelchair user reported injuries during transport on two occasions, which staff acknowledged. Another man with a disability said he was stranded in the shower area “for a long time” because no escort came, and detainees with disabilities said they depend on cellmates, not trained staff, for basic daily activities. Medication delivery broke down to the point that some patients stayed awake until 2 a.m. for doses scheduled around 7 p.m., and the monitor observed “loose pills” on a medication room floor, “indicating that medication handling and disposal practices were not consistently maintained.” The report closes with recommendations for repairing the gaps and tracking care across the facility.
A DHS spokesperson did not answer questions about the findings and said the department provides “comprehensive medical care” to people in its custody.
Ryan Gustin, a CoreCivic spokesperson, said the company was still reviewing the report. “Nothing matters more to CoreCivic than the health, safety and well-being of the people in our care,” he said, adding that an on-site ICE officer is responsible for “monitoring compliance with applicable ICE detention standards and policies.” Gustin said detainees receive screenings, chronic care management, and behavioral healthcare, and that staff coordinate outside appointments:
“While we work diligently to arrange and support those appointments, the scheduling, availability, and capacity of outside providers are not controlled by the facility.”
He said the facility follows “established clinical protocols” for medications and that staff “work to identify needs, assess appropriate accommodations, and provide assistance and support consistent with medical recommendations, operational requirements, and applicable standards” for people with disabilities.
Tess Borden, managing attorney at the Prison Law Office, which represents the detained men, said the findings “tell a nightmarish story—psychiatric patients left without follow-up, medication and culture specimens improperly stored, specialist appointments that were missed or never scheduled.”
“This report confirms what thousands of people have experienced firsthand: in every area of health care, California City is failing,” she said.
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Shut it down
No one can say we didn’t know that 65,000 to 75,000 human beings are being held in unacceptable and wretched conditions because of ICE and the DHS. We know! And these facilities are being run by for profit prison companies. Have we lost our moral compasses completely?