Immigrants decry conditions at former prison, ICE’s largest detention center in California
By Rachel Uranga
Staff Writer
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Sept. 29, 2025 3 AM PT
California’s largest ICE detention center, a former prison in the Mojave Desert, faces complaints of poor conditions from immigrants fighting deportation.
More than 100 detainees staged hunger strikes this month, protesting inadequate medical care, lockdowns and prison-like treatment at the CoreCivic-operated facility.
The facility opened without city permits as part of the Trump administration’s expansion of immigration detention nationwide to accommodate up to 100,000 people.
Men sleep in locked cells every night on bunk beds with thin cotton blankets. They walk in straight lines with hands behind their back to the razor wire-enclosed “yard.” Guards carrying handcuffs pat them down. There are head counts, lockdowns and “segregation” units.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-09-29/detainees-protest-at-californias-largest-and-newest-immigration-detention-center