Federal immigration authorities are looking for a possible recent jail in Northern California, a proposal that’s alarming advocates and a few Democratic state lawmakers as President-elect Donald Trump prepares to launch his mass deportation plan.
In August, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issued a request for information to discover additional detention beds within the state as other federal agencies stepped up border controls. The effort began following the Biden administration's sweeping asylum ban, enacted in June, on migrants caught crossing the U.S.-Mexico border outside designated entry points. Under the ban, border officials can deport such migrants inside hours or days without reviewing their asylum claims.
RELATED: Federal closure of scandal-plagued FCI women's prison in Dublin will probably be everlasting
Supporters say expanding detention space would give Trump the chance to perform more mass deportations in California. Accordingly, immigrants in counties with more detention spaces are at higher risk of being arrested and detained Interest group research.
Unlike in Texas, where there are state officials to supply land to the Trump administration To ease mass deportations, California tried to ban the opening of latest federal prisons for immigrants throughout the first Trump administration. The court blocked it, ruling that the state had unconstitutionally overreached federal immigration enforcement.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta told CalMatters that the state could also be powerless to forestall the potential of a brand new facility.
ICE's expansion plans
Federal documents show that ICE made the request for information on August 14th. Such requests can pave the way in which for federal contracts, on this case to take care of “available detention facilities for single adult populations (male and female)” in Arizona, New Mexico, Washington, Oregon, and California. The application states that the facilities must have 850 to 950 detention beds each and “may be publicly or privately owned and operated.”
The documents state that one in all the facilities could be inside a two-hour drive of the San Francisco field office. The request also seeks facilities near field offices in Phoenix, El Paso and Seattle.
“ICE has identified a need for immigration detention services in the U.S. western area of responsibility,” ICE spokesman Richard Beam wrote in an email to CalMatters. “The proposed services are part of ICE's efforts to continually review its detention needs and explore options that provide ICE with the operational flexibility needed to accommodate the full range of detainees in the agency's custody.”
Currently, ICE detains about 38,000 people daily in about 120 immigration detention centers across the country. In California, that number is sort of 3,000 inmates held day by day in six facilities. in accordance with essentially the most current immigration data available managed by the Syracuse University Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse.
This is the third largest variety of detained immigrants within the country.
RELATED: Trump's mass deportation threats in his first term fizzled. Here's the way it could end up this time.
In California, private, for-profit prison firms operate all six ICE detention centers – the Golden State Annex and Mesa Verde detention centers in Kern County; the Adelanto Detention Facility and Desert View Annex, each in San Bernardino County; the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego County; and the Imperial Regional Detention Facility in Imperial County.
In all six cases, the federal government has the capability to detain as much as 7,188 people nationwide.
State Senator. Maria Elena Durazoa Democrat from Los Angeles, said she was concerned concerning the potential economic impact of increased capability for detention and due to this fact deportations by ICE.
“California’s expansion of incarceration affects everyone in our state. The expansion of incarceration is accompanied by increased ICE raids and family separations, all of which have devastating social and economic impacts for California,” she said. “Furthermore, these facilities are operated by private, for-profit companies that consistently put their profits ahead of the health and safety of those who work or are incarcerated in these facilities.”
RELATED: Gov. Newsom publicizes recent plans for National Guard on California-Mexico border
Proponents argue that expanding prison sentences results in human rights violations and undermines community safety.
“An expansion of ICE detention operations in the Bay Area and Northern California will be part of a reign of terror over our communities that the Trump administration is threatening,” said Bree Bernwanger, a senior attorney on the New York Times American Civil Liberties Immigrants' Rights team Union of Northern California. “We already know from existing facilities in California that ICE does not and cannot maintain safe and/or healthy standards for housing people there.”
The ACLU is suing to learn more concerning the federal agency's expanded detention plans.
Bernwanger referred to topics similar to complaints about sexually abusive patdowns. Additionally, in 2023, ICE allegedly retaliated against hunger strikers by storming into their cells, violently dragging them, threatening to force-feed them, after which providing them with food unsuitable for breaking a 21-day fast. trigger an illness in at the very least one inmate, in accordance with a lawsuit filed by the inmate, who was represented by two advocacy groups.
In August, the civil rights organization published one 34 page report It details 485 complaints filed between 2023 and June 2024 by detainees at six immigration detention centers in California. These complaints included allegations of dangerous facilities, inhumane treatment, medical neglect, and retaliation.
ICE declined to comment on the report.
California has did not ban for-profit federal penitentiaries
In December 2019, California passed a law that will have banned private immigration detention centers. It was a part of a wave of resistance by California Democrats against the primary Trump administration. It also banned the state from using for-profit prisons for inmates starting in 2028. The for-profit facilities “contribute to excessive incarceration” and “do not reflect our values,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said said in a press release when signing the invoice.
A number of days before the law took effect, ICE signed recent contracts for its facilities in California. The ninth Circuit Court of Appeals later struck down the state's ban on private prisons.
Bonta, who authored the unsuccessful ban as an Oakland legislator, told CalMatters in November that the state may not find a way to stop ICE from opening one other jail outside San Francisco.
“It’s a question of federal jurisdiction,” Bonta said. “It’s federal. I disagree, but my office’s disagreement was taken into account and the court concluded that it was a federal matter.”
Originally published:
image credit : www.mercurynews.com