Bay Area Congressman Ramps Up Push to Bring ICE Detention Conditions to Light

South Bay Rep. Ro Khanna is ramping up congressional Democrats’ push for accountability at the California City immigration detention facility in the Mojave Desert after making an oversight visit this month that he described as “alarming.”

In a recent letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and acting Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Todd Lyons, Khanna demanded that the Trump administration turn over records on health and safety conditions at the former prison.

In an interview with KQED, Khanna echoed the widespread condemnation of the administration’s violent immigration enforcement escalation, which has swelled after the shooting of Alex Pretti, the second Minneapolis resident to be killed by DHS agents this month. Khanna said the behavior of immigration agents in Minneapolis and inside ICE detention centers — where a record 70,000 people are now detained — is two facets of the same problem.

“It’s lawlessness,” he said. “They’re mistreating immigrants on our streets, and they’re mistreating immigrants in detention. It’s violating the Constitution of the United States, and it’s violating our values.”

Six people have died in custody this month alone, according to ICE. That comes on top of 32 deaths in 2025, the highest number in two decades.

In the letter to Noem and Lyons, sent Jan. 22, Khanna demanded a list of records from DHS about operations of the California City facility, which is owned and run by the private prison company CoreCivic and began housing ICE detainees in late August. He gave them a deadline of Feb. 12 and specifically requested:

• Contracts between ICE and CoreCivic and with medical providers;
• Logs documenting how long it took to deliver medical care;
• Logs documenting use of force and solitary confinement;
• Logs documenting grievances filed by detainees;
• Food safety and health inspection records;
• Records of out-of-cell and recreation time.

As a member of the House Oversight Committee, Khanna said he has a “responsibility to tell the country about what’s going on” in detention facilities, which are generally hidden from public view. KQED’s request to visit the California City facility earlier this month was denied.

“I don’t think people understand the inhumanity,” said Khanna, who visited the facility after constituents in his Santa Clara County district raised concerns about family members who were held there. “I didn’t understand it myself until I went and saw it myself.”

In his letter to Noem and Lyons, Khanna said he was disturbed to see people held in civil detention treated as if they were “high-security prisoners.”

“Despite the fact that all visitors are subjected to invasive patdowns and escorts, detainees reported that everyone, even those classified as low-security, are required to meet lawyers and loved ones behind glass and treated as convicted prisoners,” he wrote.

“Most alarming,” he told the officials, “were the failures in medical care and grievance processing.

“Both a senior ICE official and facility staff admitted that urgent medical requests and grievances may sit unattended for weeks and are not reviewed on weekends or holidays,” he wrote. “Detainees described even longer delays and reported being placed in solitary confinement when they complained of medical needs — an extraordinarily troubling and punitive practice.”

ICE did not respond to KQED’s request for comment. The agency has consistently said it is detaining and deporting the “worst of the worst” violent criminals, highlighting specific people arrested in daily press releases. However, ICE’s own data show that, as of late December, just 26% of those in detention were convicted of any crime. Another 26% faced some sort of pending criminal charge, while 48% were accused of only a civil immigration violation.

Khanna’s oversight demands come as Democrats wage an all-out push to rein in DHS after the weekend killing of Pretti, who was filming immigration agents on a Minneapolis street.

Senate Democrats are vowing to vote against an appropriations bill that includes DHS funding, raising the prospect of a partial government shutdown by week’s end. Last week, all but seven House Democrats voted against the funding bill, but they lacked the votes to stop it.

Several Bay Area Democrats, including Reps. Zoe Lofgren, Eric Swalwell and Mike Thompson, have signed on to articles of impeachment against Noem.

Rep. Raul Ruiz, a Coachella Valley Democrat, tried to make an oversight visit to the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in San Bernardino County on Wednesday but was turned away. Ruiz said he requested the visit more than seven days in advance, following a recent ICE policy with which he disagrees. He said ICE also refused him entry to the Adelanto facility in July.

California Sen. Alex Padilla, who made an oversight visit with Sen. Adam Schiff to the California City detention facility last week, has introduced a bill to overhaul ICE detention and increase accountability. The bill, co-authored with Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., would:

• End ICE family detention, where children are held;
• Only allow DHS to detain people it can show are a threat to public safety or national security;
• Require ICE facilities to meet the American Bar Association’s Civil Immigration Detention Standards;
• Mandate unannounced inspections by the DHS inspector general, along with meaningful penalties if standards are not met;
• Phase out private detention facilities, run by for-profit companies;
• End the use of solitary confinement in immigration detention.

ICE does set standards for detention facilities, whether operated by the agency itself, a private-prison company or a county jail.

The agency is responsible for monitoring compliance with standards, and the DHS inspector general can also inspect. But compliance has long been inconsistent, and ICE has a history of issuing waivers to facilities that fail inspections.

Khanna told KQED he’s considering introducing a bill to repeal $75 billion in ICE funding that was part of a July reconciliation package known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. And he said he would like to “tear down” ICE as an agency and replace it with something that’s more accountable.