Judge orders ICE detention center to allow inspection in San Diego

from Wendy FryCalMatters

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A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the Otay Mesa Detention Center to allow San Diego County health inspectors access to the 1,400-bed facility, siding with local officials over the federal government in an ongoing legal feud.

The ruling could affect how local officials across the state enforce it new law in California aimed at providing an additional layer of oversight for privately run immigration detention centers.

San Diego County sued the Department of Homeland Security in March after two county supervisors and the health inspector were denied full access to the CoreCivic-run facility. The Southern California district is the first in the state to try to exercise the power of inspectiongranted by state law in 2024.

Judge James Simmons Jr. of the Southern District of California said last month that the county will likely succeed in its case over whether it has the authority to conduct public health inspections under state law.

In his order issued Wednesday, Simmons Jr. wrote that the review “must be completed as soon as possible and no later than June 17, 2026.” He also directed CoreCivic to draft a list of policies and procedures required by the county.

“The county is responsible for the safety and health of everyone within that jurisdiction, which includes the detainees at the facility,” County Attorney Damon Brown said at a press conference after the May hearing.

Otay Mesa is one of eight private detention centers in California. They hold about 5,300 people in total, up from about 3,100 just after President Trump took office in April 2025 and began a nationwide immigration crackdown.

Simmons directed county officials to try to reach an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and CoreCivic on exactly who can participate in the inspection, what areas they can inspect and how to obtain consent from detainees to be interviewed and have their medical records reviewed.

During the court hearing, CoreCivic attorney Ann Orcutt said the Tennessee-based private prison company that owns and operates Otay Mesa filed a California Public Records Act request with San Diego County to find out if supervisors routinely attend public health inspections with county officials.

Appearing on Zoom, Orcutt described the county’s request to inspect the facility as unprecedented and discriminatory against the federal government.

San Diego County Supervisor Tera Lawson-Remer, who was denied access to the inspection in February, said the argument was a distraction from the problem.

“It’s the epitome of a red herring,” she said. “The first people to arrive were a health officer and a nurse. They were not allowed access to any of the relevant documents and were ejected from the facility. The public health inspection was refused with or without our presence.”

At a press conference in March announcing the lawsuit, county supervisors credited the CalMatters reports with why they wanted to inspect the facility in the first place. District Supervisor Paloma Aguirre specifically mentioned a situation in which a deaf Mongolian man spent detained for more than four months without access to a Mongolian sign language interpreter, which his lawyer described as isolation.

CoreCivic spokesman Ryan Gustin said the company’s top priority is “the safety, health and well-being of the people entrusted to our care.”

“We fully respect the legal process and remain committed to working with both ICE and San Diego County to find a mutually agreeable resolution to this matter,” he said.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and is republished under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives license.