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A judge sent a doctor to evaluate California's largest ICE detention center. What he found

July 29, 2026 California City, CA San Francisco Chronicle
ICE is failing to provide adequate health care at the California City Immigration Processing Center, the CoreCivic-run facility about 75 miles east of Bakersfield, according to a report by Dr. Muthusamy Anandkumar, a monitor appointed by a judge in March as part of a lawsuit filed by seven detainees. Anandkumar found 13 areas of deficiency in the facility's health care program — including inadequate emergency care, dental care and chronic disease management — along with untimely access to prescribed medications, and wrote that the facility "lacks a reliable system to consistently provide adequate health care, placing individuals at serious risk of both immediate and long-term harm." Detainees complained of missing medications and months-long delays to cancer treatment; CoreCivic said the facility provides daily access to physical and mental health services and 24-hour emergency care.