CALIFORNIA CITY, Calif. (KABC) — California’s two U.S. senators visited an ICE detention center Tuesday as questions mount over how detainees are being treated following recent immigration raids across the state.
Democratic Sens. Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla said they toured the California City Detention Facility in response to growing reports of inadequate conditions inside U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention centers.
Their visit comes during intensified federal immigration operations nationwide, which ICE says have pushed the number of people in federal custody to more than 70,000.
“When you walk inside these walls, you experience a different trauma,” Schiff said during the visit. “You get to see what happens to folks who are apprehended by ICE.”
Padilla echoed concerns about the environment inside the privately run facility.
“What are the conditions like? They look a lot more like a prison than a dormitory style setting,” he said. “There is separation based on what ICE will determine level of risk.”
Schiff said some detainees they spoke with were taken into custody while attending required immigration appointments.
“Many of them that we spoke with were picked up at their immigration appointments, so they were doing what they were supposed to do, to become citizens or establish a lawful presence,” he said.
Last month, California Attorney General Rob Bonta sent a letter to the Department of Homeland Security outlining what his office described as troubling conditions at the facility.
According to Bonta, detainees may not be receiving adequate medical care, lack proper clothing or blankets to stay warm, and are being housed in unsanitary areas.
Those concerns are at the center of a federal lawsuit filed in November by seven detainees alleging that the conditions violate basic standards of humane treatment.
“If the administration is true to their word, the population here is only going to grow,” Padilla said. “So the need to address nutrition, medical attention, mental health care, all the above is only going to grow.”
The Justice Department and ICE have not responded to requests for comment regarding the senators’ visit or the allegations about conditions at the California City facility.
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