Bonta: Cruel conditions at CA immigration facilities

Added: 2026-05-16

[00:00:00]Well, a troubling report on conditions at immigration detention facilities right here in California. Fox locals Susan Herasuna joins us now with more on this report and of course we've been hearing about this for a while Susan, but this sort of encapsulates it all.

[00:00:15]This is the Attorney General's fifth report about these federal detention centers. There are seven of them, seven of them that are privately run around the state and we know of a couple of them because local politicians have gone to try to see what the facilities look like. And if you want to take a look at uh some video that we have of the Adelanto facility. So, that facility in particularly stood out for the Attorney General because he found that uh a lot of the uh the things that he wanted to criticize about the facility were particularly terrible and he basically called the facility cruel and inhumane. Not just this one, but the other six as well, especially since there are newer ones where they went from basically seven detainees to a thousand detainees. So, imagine what that ramp up could be like in terms of handling all these people that are inside. Now, take a listen to the Attorney General about other things that he found.

[00:01:16]We found a majority of detainees were low security individuals with no criminal backgrounds.

[00:01:22]We spoke with multiple women at this facility who broke down in tears when describing their living conditions.

[00:01:31]These are people who in many instances had been living as productive members of society, working and contributing to the economy, dutifully checking in with ICE, who were suddenly snatched up and detained.

[00:01:46]That kind of punitive atmosphere is not only cruel and inhumane.

[00:01:52]It defies ICE's own detention standards.

[00:01:57]To our understanding And out here is when a couple of the state representatives went to Adelanto, went to the Geo facility, asked for access, were denied, and that happened multiple times. It wasn't just this couple of politicians, but others as well that tried to make their way in, including at one point Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff.

[00:02:17]Now, when you hear some of the things that are uh transpiring inside, and you hear that in the past, uh you know, Rob Bonta has asked for improvements, has asked for these conditions to be addressed, and he felt like even with this fifth report, he didn't really expect to have any of these private facilities or the Homeland Security DOJ to respond. Here's a Here's another sound bite from what he uh told us today in a in a press conference.

[00:02:49]Adelanto in particular stood out. They're the ones that had the biggest population surge. They're the ones that had the four deaths.

[00:02:56]Um the California City Detention Facility as well stood out for egregious conditions. They just weren't ready. Um and they treated the facility like a a criminal incarceral facility instead of a civil immigration detention center.

[00:03:10]And we had harrowing stories of um you know, older detainees freezing at night because of the cold conditions, lack of access to food and water, health conditions, et cetera. So, those stood out.

[00:03:23]What you're looking at now are some of the right ICE raids, rather, the ICE raids that we have uh witnessed thanks to cell phone video and media video around the state, and you know, those are the people that wind up in these federal detention centers. Now, I reached out to um ICE to find out if they wanted to make a comment. Instead, they referred me to DHS, so they weren't um they weren't about to respond to what he has to say. And as I said earlier, uh the Attorney General is not very confident that anyone from these facilities or from DHS will reach back out to him and say, "Yeah, we hear you and we will try to make changes or we'll try to improve things." It's interesting because I have tried to talk with DHS in the past when it comes to the complaints that were coming out of Adelanto in particular, and the response was, "Oh, all the detainees have to do is go and talk to the people that are running the detention center and just make a complaint." And of course, it seems sort of disingenuous because they weren't really being treated as people that were just being detained. They were being treated as the Attorney General says, more like criminals.

[00:04:36]>> Right, incarceration. One of the biggest complaints, Susan, has been the fact that the areas there, the the bathrooms, the areas where people would use the toilet or take a shower are not private at all. Were you hearing about that today? Not only not private, but also that there aren't enough, and there aren't enough ways to, you know, take a shower. So, the the Attorney General was mentioning that some people were using empty lotion bottles to use that as a way to bathe. So, in terms of what is considered humane treatment, I mean, even in our prisons, you know, there are very specific rules on what can be done and what should be provided to prisoners, but some of these stories are just, you know, so horrible to hear.

[00:05:21]Like, if you consider when we watch those ICE raids personally, you know, when we're watching cell phone video, like this video right here, um and you realize that some of these people that are being detained are, you know, they're not 22, they're not, you know, they're they're older people, and to just picture them in a facility that is too cold, they don't get, you know, clean clothes. That was a common complaint as well. Or they're not getting the medical care that they're supposed to get. You know, we also have seen where a state representative had to intervene, take medicine from the wife in order to get it to the husband who was being detained. And that was always why is that, you know, a difficult thing to do when you consider person's sick, they need their medicine.

[00:06:10]Seems very basic. It does, yeah. You know, it was interesting because I actually went Adelanto to cover a story.

[00:06:17]And I was there because all of these Catholic bishops were there to serve mass.

[00:06:22]They were only allowed into a very specific area. They couldn't go beyond it. But to see these people receive mass behind bars, it was so moving because this is the heart of any person, right?

[00:06:36]If this is their religion. And um, you know, it just sort of underscored to me the division.

[00:06:45]And you know, I did see that video and that story that you you did and it it's a similar situation that we also heard from like representative Judy Chu where she said she got only so far. And so, you know, we had a little video of what could be what it looks like inside. We don't actually know 100% because no real video has come out of the detention centers. And by the way, it turns out I mentioned seven of these privately run facilities, but in fact, kind of on the quiet side, uh, the feds started to build another one and started to accept detainees. So, Bonta did, you know, looked at, his team looked at seven facilities, but there are actually eight with a ninth being built or planned for.

[00:07:29]So, but yeah, it's it's sort of interesting. I think if I had been at that press conference and I was not, I was here watching it, I would have asked so how hard was it for your team to get inside because so many others were turned away. Well, I would assume that the ACLU and groups like that are petitioning hard to gain access. Do you know if they've had any success? I don't. I know that we have found video from like say attorneys that represent a detainee, but it's just unclear to me how deep they get into the facility, you know, and as you say some of the basic things that you would expect you know, clean clothes or maybe not clean clothes, but how about a blanket, you know, when you sleep? So, um, you know, food. So, yeah, there's some horror stories that are coming up.

[00:08:17]>> Yeah, if if clergy can't get in, I can't imagine that investigators are going to be allowed in, right? They've got the will of God behind them, don't they?

[00:08:26]Aren't they supposed to anyway?

[00:08:28]But that was enough to influence the the the people who run it you know, run the facilities to let them all the way in, but And I don't know if this is off the the bounds, but do you think this is a profitable enterprise because you say they're being built quickly?

[00:08:44]>> Yeah, Bonta says that it's like hundreds of millions in order to run them. So, yeah, when you think of a a company, a private company, they're not doing it for, you know, charity.

[00:08:58]They're doing it as a company that needs to make money, but he says hundreds of millions. All right, Susan Harriman, thank you so much for that insight.

[00:09:06]All right, up next right here an [music] expert weighs in on the national wide hormonal therapy patch shortage. We'll see you in a couple of minutes.