California AG Bonta releases fifth ICE detention report: 162% surge, 6 deaths

California Attorney General Rob Bonta released the state DOJ's fifth report on ICE detention conditions on May 15, 2026. Investigators visited all seven California ICE facilities operating under federal contracts in 2025. The report documented a 162% surge in detainees, from 2,303 people in custody in 2023 to 6,028 in 2025. Bonta called conditions at the facilities 'cruel, inhumane, and unacceptable.' ()

Six detainees died in California ICE custody between September 2025 and March 2026, the highest death toll since the state started reviewing these facilities in 2017. The surge in deaths tracked directly with the surge in population: more people were held in the same space with the same or fewer resources. California DOJ connected the deaths to documented failures in medical care at the inspected facilities. ()

Most detainees had no criminal history. California DOJ inspectors found that most people held in these facilities were classified as low-security risk, contradicting Trump administration claims that ICE focuses on dangerous criminals. The Trump administration's no-bond detention policy drove up population numbers by keeping more people locked up longer before any hearing. ()

GEO Group operates four of the seven inspected California ICE facilities: Adelanto ICE Processing Center and Desert View Annex in San Bernardino County, Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center, and Golden State Annex in Kern County. GEO Group is a publicly traded company that earns revenue per detention bed per day. When detention populations rise, GEO Group's revenue rises with them. ()

Inspectors found widespread violations of ICE's own detention standards across facilities. Documented problems included inadequate medical care, overcrowding, insufficient food and clean water, excessive use of force, and barriers that prevented detainees from accessing lawyers and due process hearings. ICE sets the standards, pays the contractors, and is supposed to enforce compliance against those same contractors. ()

California's inspection authority comes from Assembly Bill 103, enacted in 2017. That law requires the DOJ to review and report on detention conditions through July 1, 2027. AG Bonta sponsors SB 1399, authored by state Sen. Maria Elena Durazo, to remove that sunset date and make oversight permanent. SB 1399 advanced out of committee in 2026. ()

The ACLU and Prison Law Office filed Gomez Ruiz v. ICE in federal court challenging conditions at the California City Detention Facility in Kern County, the state's largest ICE detention center with more than 1,000 detainees. A court granted a preliminary order requiring ICE to provide attorney access, appropriate clothing, and blankets for detainees reporting dangerously cold temperatures, and also granted provisional class certification. ()

No federal inspector general is actively auditing ICE detention conditions in California. The AG report is the only systematic public accountability mechanism operating right now. ICE pays private contractors, and those contractors answer to ICE. California can't compel ICE to fix anything, but it can compel transparency, which is what these reports provide. ()