AG Bonta submitted comments raising concerns with CoreCivic’s faulty and incomplete applications for a business license and site plan for its current use of the California City Correctional Facility for immigrant detention operations. Last year, CoreCivic opened the largest detention facility in the state without ensuring it was adequately prepared to receive civil immigration detainees. While inspecting the facility pursuant to its authority under Assembly Bill 103, the California Department of Justice discovered serious problems with conditions at the facility, including a lack of adequate medical care, inexperienced staff and unfilled staff positions, incomplete records, a lack of due process, and unsanitary living spaces. In the letter, Attorney General Bonta urges city leaders to reject CoreCivic’s applications, highlighting that CoreCivic’s immigrant detention operations violate the city’s municipal code. 

“Last year, CoreCivic opened the California City Detention Facility without proper permits and without sufficient staffing or preparation for the influx of detainees that would soon fill its halls. Now CoreCivic is belatedly seeking approval for this facility based on incomplete and misleading information about its detention operations. I urge city leaders to reject its applications because CoreCivic’s immigrant detention operations violate California City’s Municipal Code. My office has seen firsthand the substandard conditions at the California City Detention Facility, and we cannot condone this latest attempt to shortcut proper procedure to facilitate the President’s inhumane mass detention and deportation agenda.” -AG Bonta