A federal court-appointed medical monitor has found that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is failing to provide adequate health care at its newest and largest detention facility in California, where detainees have reported missing medications and monthslong delays in cancer treatment.
The findings come from Dr. Muthusamy Anandkumar, who was assigned by a judge to oversee medical conditions at the California City Immigration Processing Center, a sprawling facility about 75 miles east of Bakersfield operated by private prison company CoreCivic. The federal government purchased the site earlier this month, though CoreCivic continues to run day-to-day operations.
Anandkumar was appointed in March as part of an ongoing lawsuit filed by seven detainees who argue that conditions inside the facility amount to a violation of their due process rights.
In his report, Anandkumar wrote that the center “lacks a reliable system for consistently providing adequate medical care, placing individuals at serious risk of both immediate and long-term harm.” He added that the pattern of failures points to systemic problems within the facility’s health care operations rather than isolated lapses.
The doctor was careful to note that individual health care workers were not to blame. Instead, he pointed to understaffing, weak management and insufficient oversight as the root causes. At times, he found, staff members were pulled out of ongoing training sessions to cover shifts because the facility was short-handed.
“As a result, employees who had not completed their own training were, in turn, training new hires,” Anandkumar wrote. “Given the number of patients and the seriousness of their medical and mental health needs, these significant shortcomings contribute to an unsafe environment.”
The monitor identified 13 separate deficiencies within CoreCivic’s medical program at the California City site, including inadequate emergency response, insufficient dental care and poor management of chronic illnesses. He also found that detainees were not given timely access to prescribed medications.
ICE opened the detention center on the grounds of a shuttered state prison and began housing detainees there in August. Just a month later, Disability Rights California, a state advocacy organization, conducted a two-day inspection of the facility and reported that staff were failing to distribute medication for potentially life-threatening conditions and were not scheduling necessary surgeries in a timely manner.
That inspection’s findings closely mirror what Anandkumar documented ten months later, including delayed responses to urgent medical requests and failure to distribute medication for conditions requiring ongoing management, such as diabetes, high blood pressure and seizure disorders.
A CoreCivic spokesperson said the facility offers daily access to physical and mental health services, along with round-the-clock emergency medical care.
“When specialized or advanced care is required beyond what is available on-site, our medical staff coordinates with community physicians, hospitals and specialty providers to facilitate access to medically necessary treatment,” said Ryan Gustin, a CoreCivic spokesperson. “While we work diligently to arrange and facilitate those appointments, the scheduling, availability and capacity of outside providers are not something the facility controls.”
Gustin added that an ICE compliance officer monitors adherence to detention standards at the facility.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on behalf of detainees held at the site, alleges that people in custody lack sufficient clothing to withstand cold desert nights and are being denied medical care for life-threatening conditions. The complaint also states that detainees with mobility impairments have been denied wheelchairs, with some unable to bathe or dress themselves without assistance.
Sokhean Keo, one of the detainees named as a plaintiff in the case against ICE, said in a statement distributed by the ACLU that he never received medication prescribed to treat an infection.
“If this system isn’t changed,” Keo said, “sick people are going to die.”
Original source: CalMatters
