Attorney General Bonta Urges City Leaders to Reject CoreCivic’s Applications for Continued Use of California City Detention Facility

OAKLAND — California Attorney General Rob Bonta yesterday 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 (AB) 103, the California Department of Justice (DOJ) 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,” said Attorney General Bonta. “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.” 

In August 2025, without obtaining a business license or any other entitlement required by the Municipal Code, CoreCivic began to receive immigrants who had been detained by the federal government in California. Within two weeks of opening, the facility held an estimated 500 detainees. By January 2026, the detained population at the facility had ballooned to over 1,400 people. During inspections conducted in November 2025, DOJ staff found numerous violations of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) own detention standards — including the premature opening of the facility without adequate staffing, crisis-level understaffing for healthcare, denial of access to outside medical specialists, exposure of detainees to extremely cold temperatures, rainwater and plumbing leaks into detainees’ living quarters, inadequate food, excessively long lockdowns, and a failure to provide detainees with recreational time, among other problems, raising serious concerns about the facility’s ability to safely detain a growing population.

In February 2026, the City approved a business license and site plan for CoreCivic’s immigrant detention operations at the facility. An administrative appeal to the City’s issuance of the entitlements was filed later that month. In a letter sent to city leaders, Attorney General Bonta urges California City to reject CoreCivic’s business license and site plan review applications on appeal because: 

• California City may not approve a business license or site plan application that fails to include information or materials required by the Municipal Code or that contains material misrepresentations. Based on records provided to DOJ by the City and publicly available information, it appears that CoreCivic did not provide the City with proof of compliance with workers’ compensation laws or a site plan with its applications, as required by the Municipal Code, and CoreCivic’s applications obscure the nature of its immigrant detention operations at the facility.
• California City may not issue a business license unless the proposed use conforms to the zoning regulations. Here, CoreCivic’s use of the facility as an immigrant detention center violates the City’s zoning regulations and the existing conditional use permit for the facility. Further, the existing conditional use permit for the facility allows up to 2,304 beds — not the 2,816 beds that California City has purported are authorized.

Attorney General Bonta is committed to shining a light on conditions at immigration detention facilities across California and standing up for California’s immigrant communities. Last week, Attorney General Bonta filed a lawsuit seeking to block the illegal development of an ICE facility in unincorporated Santa Clara County near Gilroy, California. Earlier this year, he released DOJ's fifth report on the cruel, inhumane, and unacceptable conditions at immigration detention facilities operating in California. He has also filed amicus briefs opposing the conditions of confinement at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center and sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security shining a light on dangerous conditions at the California City Detention Facility.