Amid “inhumane” and “punitive” conditions at California City Detention Facility, a man held in the state’s largest immigration detention center faces “imminent death,” according to an emergency motion filed by Keker, Van Nest & Peters, the Prison Law Office, the ACLU, and the California Collaborative for Immigrant Justice. Another detainee may suffer life-threatening consequences from a long-delayed cancer diagnosis and treatment.
The detainees, Yuri Alexander Roque Campos and Fernando Viera Reyes, are plaintiffs in a federal class action lawsuit challenging conditions at the CoreCivic-run facility in the Mojave Desert. According to the emergency filing, both men are experiencing acute medical distress and have not received necessary specialty care. At the facility, detainees are routinely denied prescribed medications, surgeries, and access to specialists, even when their conditions are critical.
The emergency motion says the men’s medical conditions “have only deteriorated since Plaintiffs filed their preliminary injunction motion, and neither man has seen a specialist or begun an appropriate course of treatment.”
“These are two very acute issues that we felt we had to run to court to address,” Keker partner Cody Harris told the Los Angeles Times. “But there are others who are suffering from medical problems in that facility.”
At a recent hearing, U.S. District Judge Maxine M. Chesney ordered the government to either resolve the medical issues or file an opposition. A hearing on the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction addressing systemic conditions at the facility is set for January. The Department of Homeland Security and ICE have disputed allegations that detainees are denied proper medical care, while a CoreCivic spokesman has stated that detainee health and safety are top priorities.
The suit alleges that the government has failed to meet the basic human needs of the more than 800 people currently detained at the facility, which is a former state prison. Under its $130 million annual contract with ICE, CoreCivic is expected to increase the number of detainees to more than 2,500 people.
ICE’s focus “is on packing people in and they’re packing people in without an adequate system in place for providing necessary medical care and that is extremely dangerous,” Harris said.
Keker attorneys working on the case include Harris, Steven Ragland, and Carlos Martinez.
Read the Los Angeles Times article here.