(Image Credit: IMAGN) Davidson County Sheriff Daron Hall stands looking out from the doors where Alex Friedmann was caught at the Downtown Detention Center in Nashville, Tenn., Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024.
California City, California – Seven immigrants detained at California’s largest Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility are suing the Trump administration, alleging that conditions inside amount to abuse and medical neglect.
In a federal class-action lawsuit filed Wednesday, the detainees accuse ICE of denying them essential medical care, leaving them hungry, cold, and confined in what they describe as a “decrepit” and “life-threatening” facility. The complaint paints a grim portrait of life inside the California City Detention Center, a privately operated complex in the Mojave Desert managed by CoreCivic.
Opened in August inside a shuttered state prison, the facility can hold more than 2,500 people — increasing ICE’s detention capacity in California by more than a third. But the plaintiffs say that expansion came at the expense of human dignity. They describe sewage bubbling up through shower drains, insects crawling on cell walls, and people locked in concrete rooms “the size of a parking space” for hours at a time.
“It’s like they want to break you,” said one plaintiff, Sokhean Keo, who staged a hunger strike to protest the conditions. “ICE is playing with people’s lives.”
The lawsuit, filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Prison Law Office, and the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice, accuses the Trump administration of violating detainees’ constitutional rights. Plaintiffs claim they have been denied cancer treatment, insulin for diabetes, heart medication, and disability accommodations. One detainee who is deaf said staff “laughed” at him when he tried to communicate without an interpreter.
Another man, Fernando Viera Reyes, said his prostate cancer treatment was halted after his transfer to California City. His lawyers believe the cancer may have spread. A second plaintiff, Fernando Gomez Ruiz, said he hasn’t received regular insulin for his diabetes and now has a foot ulcer that “oozes blood and pus.”
Officials from the Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, rejected the allegations. Tricia McLaughlin, DHS assistant secretary, said in an email that “no one is denied access to proper medical care,” adding that detainees receive medical screenings within 12 hours of arrival and have “24-hour access to care.”
McLaughlin defended the facility’s operations, saying detainees receive three dietitian-approved meals daily and have access to phones and attorneys. “ICE has higher detention standards than most U.S. prisons,” she said.
But the plaintiffs’ accounts tell a different story: paltry meals, freezing temperatures, and officers who respond to medical pleas with mockery or force. Attorneys describe cases of officers pepper-spraying detainees for not understanding commands and beating a handcuffed man with riot shields.
CoreCivic, which runs the facility, said it complies with all federal detention standards. “The safety, health, and well-being of the individuals entrusted to our care is our top priority,” said Ryan Gustin, a company spokesperson.
Attorneys for the detainees say what’s happening in California City reflects the Trump administration’s broader immigration crackdown, which has ramped up detention capacity nationwide using a $45 billion expansion of ICE operations.
“California City’s punishing conditions are punishing by design,” said Tess Borden of the Prison Law Office. “ICE and DHS are using detention as a weapon of deterrence. Many people are agreeing to deportation just to end the suffering.”
The lawsuit could become a major legal test for how far the Trump administration can go in its bid to expand immigration enforcement — and how much suffering the courts are willing to accept as collateral damage.
