California’s newest ICE center has 1,400 detainees. What Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla saw there
Democratic U.S. Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff on Tuesday conducted an oversight visit at the state’s newest and largest immigrant detention center, located in California City, about 100 miles north of Los Angeles.
In remarks to reporters, both highlighted what they described as inadequate medical care at the site.
“The most frequent feedback we got was the inadequacy of the medical care they are receiving,” said Schiff. He described meeting a diabetic detainee who he said has not received treatment for her condition in two months. “That’s frightening,” he said.
More than 1,400 people are currently held at the California City Detention Facility, run by the private for-profit prison company CoreCivic in the middle of the Mojave Desert. It opened in late August under a contract with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement with a capacity to hold 2,560 detainees.
Previously, CoreCivic operated the site as a state prison. The Newsom administration ended the contract in 2024 as it closed several state prisons because of California’s declining incarcerated population.
“They’re going to have to do something very different if they’re going to meet the medical needs of the people here, let alone adding another 1,000 people,” Padilla said.
Before entering the facility, Schiff and Padilla said they were conducting the inspection to “respond to complaints and questions from constituents about the conditions that detainees are in” and to “see firsthand what this facility is like.”
“On this anniversary of the second Trump administration, one year in, there are a couple things we already know his term is defined by: the cruelty and over-aggressiveness of the mass deportation agenda,” said Padilla.
“This is a necessary part of our oversight,” said Schiff. “We’ve all been working with constituents who have been detained here or are detained here and have described the falling conditions.”
By law, members of Congress have a right to conduct unannounced inspections of immigration detention centers. But Padilla’s spokesman said the senators arranged the visit in advance.
In July, House Democrats sued the administration over a policy requiring seven days advance notice for visits, which they argued violated federal law. In December 2025, federal Judge Jia Cobb in Washington, D.C., temporarily blocked the seven-day notice policy while the case plays out in court.
Following a deadly shooting incident involving an immigration officer in Minneapolis, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem issued a new memorandum on Jan. 8 re-imposing the seven-day notice requirement. On Jan. 19, Cobb did not immediately block this new, reinstated policy, concluding that the Jan. 8 directive was a “new agency action” that required a different legal challenge than the one previously decided.
When President Donald Trump took office a year ago, roughly 40,000 people were being held in immigration detention across the nation. By the start of December, that number had risen by almost 75%, with nearly 66,000 people held in immigration detention across the United States and the system reportedly capable of holding 70,000 people on any given day — the highest level in U.S. history, according to government data.
Last month, the California Attorney General’s office warned of “dangerous conditions” at the California City facility. In a Dec. 19 letter to Noem, attorney Michael Newman wrote the California Department of Justice “has grave concerns about the conditions at the facility and the lack of adequate medical care,” after inspecting the facility.
Attorney General Rob Bonta said the facility had “opened prematurely and was not prepared to handle the needs of the incoming population.”
Ryan Gustin, a spokesperson for CoreCivic, previously told CalMatters that the site has robust medical and mental health care on site, including around-the-clock access to those services. He said those services adhere to “standards set forth by our government partners.”
“There are no delays in individuals getting their prescription medications,” Gustin said.
In November, detainees at the facility sued, alleging the facility is polluted by sewage leaks and insect infestations, and that detainees can’t get proper medical attention for life-threatening conditions.