California lawmakers debate sending local health inspectors to immigration facilities – Press Telegram

A guard escorts an immigrant in custody from his “segregation cell” back to general population at the Adelanto Detention Facility. Sen. María Elena Durazo (D-Los Angeles) wants to close a loophole that would allow county health officers to conduct inspections of such facilities if health officers deem it necessary. (File photo by John Moore/Getty Images)

By Vanessa G. Sánchez | KFF Health News

Covid-19, mumps and chickenpox outbreaks. Contaminated water, moldy food and air ducts spewing black dust.

These health threats have been documented in California’s private immigration detention centers through lawsuits, federal and state audits, and complaints filed by the detainees themselves.

Local public health officials who routinely inspect county and state jails say they do not have the authority under state law to inspect detention centers run by private companies, including all six federal immigration detention centers in California.

Also see: Immigration activists demand freedom for black Mauritanians in Adelanto ICE facility

Sen. María Elena Durazo (D-Los Angeles) wants to close the loophole with legislation that would allow county health officials to conduct inspections of the facilities if they deem it necessary.

Durazo said many inmates live in poor conditions and that infectious diseases found in these facilities could pose a risk to surrounding communities.

Opinion: It’s Time to Close the Adelanto ICE Detention Center

“Unfortunately, our inmates are being treated like they’re not human,” she said. “We don’t want excuses. We want state and public health officials to come in when they need to.”

It’s not clear how much authority local health officials have to make changes, but public health experts say they can act as independent monitors and record violations that would otherwise go unnoticed by the public.

The state Senate unanimously passed the bill, SB 1132, in late May. It now moves to the state Assembly for consideration.

Also see: Detainee who begged for release from ICE immigration center in Adelanto dies of COVID-19

Immigration is regulated by the federal government. GEO Group, the nation’s largest private prison contractor, operates California’s federal centers, located in four counties. Together, they can house up to 6,500 people awaiting deportation or immigration hearings.

During his 2020 campaign, President Joe Biden promised to end for-profit immigration detention. But more than 90% of the roughly 30,000 people detained by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency on any given day remain in private facilities, according to a 2023 analysis by the American Civil Liberties Union. Members of Congress in both chambers have introduced legislation to phase out private detention centers, while other lawmakers, including at least two this month, have called for investigations into substandard medical and mental health care and deaths.

Washington state lawmakers passed a bill in 2023 to impose state oversight on privately run detention facilities, but the GEO Group sued and the measure stalled in court. California lawmakers have repeatedly tried to regulate such facilities, with mixed results.

In 2019, California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, signed a measure banning private prisons and detention facilities from operating in California. But a federal court later ruled the law unconstitutional as it related to immigration detention centers, saying it interfered with federal functions.

In 2021, state lawmakers passed a bill requiring private detention centers to comply with state and local public health orders and worker safety and health regulations. That measure was passed at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when the virus was sweeping through detention facilities where people were crammed into dormitories with little or no protection from airborne viruses.

At the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego, for example, more than 300 staff and inmates were infected at the start of the pandemic.

The Health Officers Association of California, which represents public health officials from the state’s 61 local health departments, supports Durazo’s legislation.

“These investigations play a critical role in identifying and addressing health and sanitation issues within these facilities, thereby reducing risks to inmates, staff and the surrounding communities,” said a letter from the association’s Executive Director, Kat DeBurgh.

Under the measure, public health officials must monitor whether facilities comply with environmental regulations, such as ensuring adequate ventilation and providing basic mental health and medical care, emergency care and safely prepared food.

Unlike public correctional facilities, which are inspected annually by local health officials, private detention centers are inspected as needed, at the discretion of the health official.

GEO Group spokesman Christopher Ferreira and ICE spokesman Richard Beam declined to comment on the move.

Public health officials are well-positioned to inspect such facilities because they know how to make confined spaces safer for large groups of people, said Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association.

Even though they probably can’t force detention centers to comply with their recommendations, their reports can provide valuable information for government officials, lawyers and others who want to pursue options such as litigation, he said. “When the system is broken, the courts can play a very important role,” Benjamin said.

The federal system that oversees health care and infectious disease transmission in immigration detention centers is broken, said Annette Dekker, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at UCLA who studies health care in these facilities.

Inspections of detention centers are typically conducted by ICE officials and, until 2022, a private auditor. In a paper published in June, Dekker and other researchers showed that immigration officials and the auditor infrequently conducted inspections — at least once every three years — and provided limited public information about deficiencies and how they were addressed.

“There is a lot of damage that happens in detention centers that we cannot document,” Dekker said.

ICE and the GEO Group have been the subject of lawsuits and hundreds of complaints about poor conditions at their California facilities since the start of the pandemic. Some of the lawsuits are still pending, but a significant portion of the complaints have been dismissed, according to a database maintained by the American Civil Liberties Union.

The most recent inmate lawsuits allege overcrowded and unsanitary conditions, denial of adequate mental and medical health care, medical neglect, and wrongful death by suicide.

The California Division of Occupational Safety and Health fined GEO Group about $100,000 in 2022 for failing to have written procedures to reduce exposure to COVID. GEO Group appealed the fine.

“I’ve seen really inhumane living conditions,” Dilmer Lovos, 28, told California Healthline by phone from the Golden State Annex immigration detention center in McFarland, Kern County. Lovos has been held there since January awaiting an immigration hearing.

Lovos, who was born in El Salvador and uses the pronouns they/them, has been a legal permanent resident for 15 years and was detained by immigration officials while on probation.

In early July, Lovos and 58 other detainees at Golden State Annex and the Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center in Bakersfield began a hunger strike, demanding an end to poor living conditions, solitary confinement, and inadequate medical and mental health care.

Lovos described an overcrowded dormitory, clogged air filters, mice and cockroaches scurrying around in the kitchen, water leaking from the ceiling and inmates with flu-like symptoms who were denied access to medication or a COVID test when they asked for it.

ICE protocols require that detainees with symptoms be tested upon admission to facilities without COVID hospitalizations or deaths in the previous week. In facilities with two or more hospitalizations or deaths in the previous week, all detainees are tested upon admission. It is up to the medical providers at each facility to decide when testing is necessary thereafter.

After Lovos filed a complaint with GEO Group in June alleging neglect of his medical and mental health, they said they were placed in solitary confinement for 20 days without a properly functioning toilet. “I could smell my urine and feces because I couldn’t flush.”