CoreCivic, the operator behind California City’s ICE Processing Center in Kern County, has been at the center of controversy since the immigration detention center was opened in 2025. It is considered one of California's largest immigration detention centers.
In February, California City officials approved CoreCivic for a business license and a Site Plan Review Application.
The Dignity Not Detention Coalition filed an appeal challenging the city officials’ approval, leading to two city meetings to review the decisions.
In a 2-1 vote this past Tuesday evening, California City officials denied an appeal that challenged those February approvals. This decision came after a tense meeting with three hours of public comment.
On Tuesday, a closed-session hearing was held to review the city's business license approval. A public appeal meeting was also held to discuss an appeal of the site plan review application.
According to a press release, CoreCivic sold the Mojave Desert facility to the federal government for $732.6 million on July 2. Questions remained regarding CoreCivic’s recent sale of the immigration detention center to the Department of Homeland Security. Commissioners discussed potentially continuing the hearing, beckoning outcry from the attendees.
Planning Commissioner Ralph Cantrell questioned if the appeal hearing should be continued due to the sale. Commissioners decided to move forward with the appeal hearing, ending in a 3-1 vote.
Many of the speakers who gave comments caravanned from across California—some drove six hours to attend the appeal hearing and press conference, which was held outside of the city hall prior to the appeal hearing.
Immigrant rights advocates, community members, activists, and family members of loved ones of people in detention packed the chambers.
In a closed city council session held prior to the planning commission meeting, the city council discussed the appeal of the business license it approved in February. The City Manager has 10 days to make a final decision on the appeal, according to Councilmember Ronald Smith, who spoke with L.A. TACO following the meeting.
Speakers from various organizations like Freedom for Immigrants, Dignity Not Detention Coalition, and the Dolores Huerta Foundation reported the poor living conditions, lack of medical care, and communication in the California City Detention Facility owned by CoreCivic.
During the commissioners' meeting, the public raised concerns about the facility's water usage and alleged inhumane conditions. Transparency concerns have been raised over how the facility has been able to operate without a business license approved by the city for several months.
A detainee from the facility was called into the press conference through a speaker to share their experiences under California City.
“They’re just worrying about the profit, not us, the human beings,” said the woman.
Outside of the city hall, several signs and banners were raised. Messages included: “Concentration Camps Are Unamerican," "Dignity & Human Rights For All,” and ”Sanctuary Keep Families Together.”
The organizers urged the importance of rallying together to make a statement.
“The true measure of a community is not how it treats the powerful, but how it treats those with the least power,” said Michelle Arkin from No Concentration Camps California.
At the end of the press conference, people entered the city hall chambers for the appeal hearing.
“The issues we are hearing from those detained inside of California City are overcrowding, inadequate medical care, food, water shortages . . . ubiquitous concerns raised from our neighbors detained at Otay Mesa,” Ruth Mendez, who traveled from San Diego, said during public comment.
Chair David Brottlund said that the planning commission's decision-making power was “strictly limited” to whether the site plan review conformed with the city’s municipal code.
City staff argued that the city’s approval of the site plan application did not approve CoreCivic to conduct new construction, expand, increase bed capacity, or allow for new modified conditional use and did not conflict with the city's codes.
City staff said Core Civic met their requirements and that they were legally bound to approve the private prison operators' application. City staff argued the planning commission should deny the appeal presented by the Dignity Not Detention Coalition.
The coalition argued that the current use of the facility as an immigration detention center conflicts with the city’s zoning laws, because the property is within the open space residential agricultural district in which immigration is not listed as a permitted use.
The coalition refuted CoreCivic’s argument that immigration detention should be treated as comparable to a prison facility. The coalition argued the current capacity of the immigration detention center exceeded the previous prison facility population capacity, which they argued presented a different use of the facility requiring the city conditional use permit be issued before the facility's use.
“We are not asking the commission to determine the future of immigration detention in the city, we are simply asking the commission to enforce municipal code as written,” said Grisel Ruiz, the attorney representing the coalition and the Immigrant Legal Resource Center. (Disclosure: The Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC) recently awarded L.A. TACO with a recognition for our work covering I.C.E. raids.)
The coalition argued that immigration detention centers are different from prison facilities: They have different legal impacts, impacts on the surrounding communities' infrastructure, and services (like water and emergency services).
Ruiz argued that the public should have been allowed to comment on the facility before it even began operating as an immigration detention center. The coalition pointed to an inspection by Disability Rights California, which found that disabled people faced abuse and neglect in the facility, and a federal lawsuit where an independent monitor was assigned to monitor the facility.
A representative for CoreCivic argued that the coalition should not have been permitted to appeal, and argued that the coalition was not an officially registered entity in California. Struck argued that CoreCivic was a good business partner to the city, and that the city gains water and tax revenue, regardless of the facility being used as a prison or immigration detention center.
Struck said that Corrective Corporations of America (CoreCivic’s previous name) proposed a detention center without specifying the type of detainees that would be held there in 1997, and a conditional use permit was granted by the city the following year.
The facility operated from 2000 to 2013 as a federal detention center that housed detainees from the Bureau of Prisons and U.S. Marshals. He said that during this time, ICE detainees were housed there for a period of three years.
From 2013 to 2024, the facility was leased to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, then returned back to CoreCivic.
Struck said in April of 2025 that CoreCivic entered a new agreement with ICE. That July, CoreCivic applied for a business license and site plan review, according to Struck. He said the city approved public notices and held hearings in October and December.
Struck argued the site application review was administrative and required approval by the city if the corporation met the city's standards, and said that there wasn’t any ambiguity between the original conditional use permits.
He said that there were around 10,000 ICE detainees from 2010 to 2013, and he argued immigration detention was not a new use. He refuted allegations that the facility is currently facing and said that constitutional violations have not been found by a federal court.
“In brief, CoreCivics' use of the facility for immigrant detention violates the city’s municipal code,” Deputy Attorney General Ashley Werner at the California Attorney General’s Office said during public comment.
Warner said she spoke and attended the meeting on behalf of California Attorney General Rob Bonta; she said that based on information provided by the city to the Attorney General's office, the site plan application does not include information required by the code.
She argued that the approval of the application would mean that the commissioners would be violating their duty to uphold the municipal code that is in place to protect public health, safety, and general welfare.
In an 88-page letter sent to the California City Manager from the California Attorney General’s office in mid-June, their office urged the city not to approve CoreCivics’ business license or site plan review applications, calling the application inaccurate and complete, finding that CoreCivics’ operations do not conform to the city zoning regulations, that immigration detention is not permitted within the zone district the facility is in, and that a conditional use permit limits bed capacity.
“Now CoreCivic is belatedly seeking approval for this facility based on incomplete and misleading information about its detention operations,” Attorney General Bonta was quoted in a press release. “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.”
There were several recesses called during the meeting, and tense exchanges between the commissioners and members of the public.
Chair Brottlund told one attendee to “shut their mouth.” He issued warnings throughout the meeting that he could have individuals removed from the chambers if they continued to interrupt the meeting, citing a city decorum policy.
During one exchange, he interrupted a woman while she gave a public comment addressing the planning commissioner's mid-meeting departure and critiqued the city’s handling of it.
Chair Brottlund said that Planning Commissioner Salena Coleman would be leaving the meeting at 9 p.m. due to an early morning drive for her job in Malibu the following morning. Brottlund said the meeting could continue despite her absence because the planning commission would still have a quorum to make a decision regarding the approval of the appeal.
The legal representative for the Dignity Not Detention Coalition, leading the appeal of the site application approval, urged public commenters to hold their comments so that all four planning commissioners could be in attendance for the vote.
A majority of the remaining speakers agreed to forgo their comment in exchange for Coleman to be able to vote on the appeal. A few more speakers decided to give their comment. A few minutes after 9 p.m., Coleman abruptly stood up and walked out of the room. A woman pleaded with Coleman to stay and the crowd booed her as she walked out.
A crowd followed the planning commissioner into the parking lot. A warning was issued for a woman who followed Coleman out of the room as she left, and she was told by the Chair that she could potentially be arrested if she did not abide by the city’s decorum policy.
“I understand more than you know, okay?” Coleman said. “Listen, I had 10 years of police brutality for my grandson’s dad being killed. So don’t tell me what I don’t know, I’ve been doing activism for 25 years in L.A. I’m in Kern County, because of L.A., right. So don’t tell me what I don’t know. You don’t need me cause if y’all needed me, y’all would have got together collectively and understood this, he mentioned that I was leaving at 9:00.”
When public comments concluded, the planning commissioners deliberated. Planning Commissioner Carina Perez declined to comment. Planning Commissioner Cantrell and Chair Brottlund went back and forth on how to proceed.
Cantrell initially motioned to remand the matter back to the planning technician due to the selling of the facility and questioned the validity of the city staff as a source matter expert on the matter.
Cantrell stressed that if CoreCivic wanted to conduct business in the city, they needed to follow environmental and life safety rules and to ensure accommodations for people with disabilities. He maintained that the matter remained outside of the planning commissions' jurisdiction.
Cantrell did not receive a second motion, and the resolution passed, maintaining the planning directors’ initial approval.
