Senators Decry Conditions On Tour Of California City ICE Facility

Here are the morning’s top stories on Wednesday, January 21, 2026

• As tensions rise over the conduct of federal immigration enforcement – and in-custody deaths are increasing – California’s two U.S. senators say they’re “aghast” at conditions inside the newest immigration detention center in the state. That’s after a visit Tuesday to the California City Detention Facility.
• California prosecutors are expressing alarm at the Trump administration’s response to the January 7 fatal shooting of a Minneapolis woman  by an immigration agent, including claims that ICE officials have absolute immunity from prosecution.

Senators Padilla And Schiff Tour ICE Facility In California City

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.

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.”

California Prosecutors Push Back On ICE Immunity Claims

California prosecutors are expressing alarm at the Trump administration’s response to the fatal shooting of a Minneapolis woman by an immigration agent, pointing to statements that the agent has absolute immunity from prosecution and to the decision to exclude Minnesota investigators from the inquiry into the incident.

In interviews with KQED, state and local prosecutors vowed to investigate and, if necessary, prosecute federal agents who act illegally in California. But they acknowledged that those probes would be difficult to undertake without federal cooperation.

“Despite what Vice President Vance has irresponsibly and erroneously said, there’s no such thing as absolute immunity,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta, a Democrat, said. “Of course, there can be criminal liability for an ICE agent who commits a crime. ICE agents do not have carte blanche and license to kill and commit crimes and assaults and batter and rape and murder Americans. That’s what JD Vance is saying.”

Amid aggressive immigration raids in Minneapolis, Renee Macklin Good was shot by an ICE agent as she appeared to turn her car away from the officer on Jan. 7. Following the shooting, federal authorities — including President Donald Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem — blamed Good for the shooting, excluded state and local law enforcement from the investigation and moved to focus the probe on Good’s possible activism, not the ICE agent’s actions.

“I’ve never in my career seen a government official, an elected official, or the head of a law enforcement agency come out and within minutes justify the conduct of the officer or agent (involved in a shooting),” San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins said on KQED’s Political Breakdown. “It tells me that there’s already been a conclusion drawn, that we will not have a full and fair and independent investigation because they’ve already told us that they’ve determined that this shooting was justified. And so there will not be an opportunity for justice should that need to happen.” Jenkins, a Democrat, made headlines in October amid threats of Bay Area immigration raids when she said she would not hesitate to prosecute federal agents who break the law in San Francisco. Her comments prompted Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to write a letter that offered a preview of the government’s response to the Minnesota case: He declared any arrest of federal agents “illegal and futile.”