This is disturbing.
On Friday, my office released a new public report with nearly 200 pages of information on the conditions at the seven immigration detention facilities that ICE operates in California — paid for by American taxpayer dollars.
These facilities are where people detained by ICE are held, and what we found during our inspections is alarming and unacceptable.
Since Trump took office again, his administration’s aggressive mass deportation campaign has led to a shocking surge of people in these facilities, which were unprepared for the influx.
We found the facilities to be overcrowded and understaffed, and the conditions are unsafe and unsanitary. They don’t even meet ICE’s own detention standards.
We found evidence of inadequate medical care, including emergency care. We heard countless reports of a lack of basic necessities, issues accessing clean water, and people going hungry unless they were able to purchase extra food at the commissary.
At Adelanto — where the detainee population surged from seven in 2023 to more than 1,500 as of 2025 — we saw murky drinking water coming out of the tap.
At California City, we heard from detainees who experienced extreme cold — using their socks to improvise sleeves and using sheets of paper to block the cold air coming from air vents in their cells.
We heard multiple reported incidents of facilities using pepper spray against detainees, and saw staff who appeared to be using excessive use of force.
Tragically, six people died in these facilities between September 2025 and March 2026.
It’s cruel and inhumane, and it’s far past time for the Trump administration to do something about it.
The people in these facilities are human beings like you and me. They are people who largely have no criminal record. Who, in many instances, had been living in our communities, contributing to our economy, and dutifully checking in with ICE, before suddenly being snatched up and detained. And beyond the basic human rights they are owed, they are afforded civil rights.
There must be oversight and accountability, and I profoundly hope that this report will help bring about the rightful outrage and urgency to improve the conditions of these detention centers and protect the civil rights of the people detained.
Thank you for reading, and for your ongoing support for this important work. It is because of your partnership that I’m proudly able to serve as Attorney General of California.
—Rob
Rob Bonta
Attorney General of California
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