Immigration and Customs Enforcement is failing to provide adequate medical care at a newly acquired detention facility in California City, according to a court-appointed independent evaluator’s report. Detainees at the facility have reported severe obstacles to treatment, including months-long delays for cancer care and widespread shortages of essential prescription drugs.
Court-Appointed Evaluation Reveals Systemic Deficiencies
Dr. Muthusamy Anandkumar, appointed by a federal judge in March, documented 13 distinct areas of deficiency within the medical program operated by CoreCivic at the California City Immigration Processing Center. The facility, situated roughly 75 miles east of Bakersfield, operates inside a former state prison. According to Anandkumar’s findings, the facility lacks a reliable system to deliver consistent medical care, placing individuals at risk of immediate and long-term harm.
The evaluation attributes these failures primarily to chronic understaffing, poor management, and insufficient oversight rather than the fault of individual healthcare workers. The report notes that staffing shortages frequently forced facility personnel to pull staff away from training sessions to cover active shifts. Consequently, employees who had not yet finished their own training were assigned to train newer arrivals, creating what Anandkumar described as an unsafe environment given the volume and severity of patients’ medical and mental health needs.
CoreCivic Operations and Oversight Under Scrutiny
The federal government acquired the California City facility earlier this month, while private prison operator CoreCivic retained operational control. ICE originally opened the immigration detention center in August. A subsequent two-day inspection in September by Disability Rights California identified parallel concerns, noting that operators failed to distribute medications for life-threatening conditions and lagged on scheduling necessary surgeries.
Both independent reviews highlighted identical systemic breakdowns, specifically citing delayed responses to requests for serious illness care and missing supplies for chronic conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and seizure disorders. Emergency care, dental services, and chronic disease management all fell below acceptable operational standards.
Ryan Gustin, a spokesperson for CoreCivic, stated that the facility provides daily access to physical and mental health services alongside round-the-clock emergency medical availability. Gustin maintained that facility health staff coordinate with community doctors, hospitals, and specialized providers when advanced care is necessary, though he noted that the facility lacks control over the scheduling and capacity of outside providers. Compliance at the facility is directly monitored by an assigned ICE official.
Legal Action and Detainee Testimony
The findings stem from a federal lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California by seven detainees. The complaint asserts that conditions at the California City facility violate due process rights, citing inadequate clothing for cold desert nights, missing mobility devices such as wheelchairs, and conditions that prevent detainees from bathing or dressing independently.
Sokhean Keo, one of the named plaintiffs in the lawsuit, stated in an ACLU-distributed press release that he never received prescribed medication for an active infection. “If there is no change in this system,” Keo said, “the people sick are going to die.”
Related reading