The crackdown on undocumented immigrants continues across the United States. Recently, seven detainees at a California ICE facility sued authorities over inhumane conditions. The lawsuit, filed Wednesday, names the Trump administration among the defendants. The details of the case mention the absence of primary facilities of adequate food, water, and medical care.
The detainees claimed the authorities at CoreCivic California City Immigration Processing Center have restricted family visitations. Additionally there is delayed access to attorneys, which could sometimes even stretch for weeks. Immigrants with physical disabilities are not provided with special assistance. Issues of excessive solitary confinement have caused an uproar. People are being held in dirty units and freezing temperatures.
The detainees also detailed restrictions on their religious practices. They alleged that the authorities have confiscated their prayer mats, head coverings, and holy texts. These have further added to their frustration and disappointment.
DRC’s latest report, “Newly Opened California City ICE Detention Facility: Dangerous for Disabled People,” has been featured in an article from KQED. The article discusses DRC’s alarming findings on the California City ICE facility owned by CoreCivic. KQED cites one detainee’s… pic.twitter.com/GyygyoAUYk
— Disability Rights California (@DisabilityCA) November 6, 2025
Besides the Trump administration, the lawsuit has also been filed against the ICE as well as the Department of Homeland Security. While the matter has already caught the attention of the public, neither of the two accused federal agencies has reacted to the lawsuit. CoreCivic, the Tennessee-based company that operates the detention center, has not commented on the matter as well.
One of the detainees, named Fernando Gomez Ruiz, who was arrested in October, spoke with the Chronicle and shared more chilling details. He revealed harrowing conditions inside the California detention facility. The authorities have not supplied him with his regularly needed dose of insulin, since he has diabetes.
Lack of timely medicine has led him to develop a huge ulcer at the bottom of his foot. Unfortunately, the medical team has not supplied him with any medication for the wound as well. He added, “I’ve been cleaning the blood with toilet paper. I’m scared to lose my foot. It feels like they don’t care that I’m sick.”
This lawsuit comes after one hundred detained immigrants held a sit-in and refused meals in September. Demands for improved conditions and overall betterment of the facility were made. Immigration attorneys later informed the Chronicle that the guards retaliated against their clients in riot gear. Threats of brutal force were made and some of them were even placed in solitary confinement. Others were put in lockdown without any access to water and medical supplies. Around 4 of them were even led ahead for solitary confinement as they protested against the authorities for improving the conditions.
NEW: ICE is “unnecessarily” placing dozens of immigrants detained at its largest California facility in criminal prison-like solitary confinement, according to observations from a disability rights watchdog group that toured the civil detention center.https://t.co/cmxxGrbY9r
— Melissa Montalvo (@melissamyrna_) November 4, 2025
In response to the complaints about conditions at the California facility Blindly denying all false allegations, Brian Todd said in September, “All our facilities operate with a significant amount of oversight and accountability, including being monitored by federal officials daily, to ensure an appropriate standard of living and care for every individual.”
The subhuman conditions faced by the detainees have caused quite an uproar on social media. Meanwhile, attorneys from California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice, Prison Law Office, Keker, Van Nest & Peters LLP, and the ACLU’s National Prison Project, unanimously collaborated to file the lawsuit on behalf of the seven detained immigrants.
