BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
The battle over building more ICE detention centers like this one in Bakersfield is about to heat up. Local immigration activists say they will fight to keep this from happening. Here's why.
AB 137 is a new California law that blocks ICE from using closed state prisons as detention centers. It gives the state power to stop any future detention or incarceration at those sites. Federal officials say more space is needed.
Brian Kaneda, is the Deputy Director, for CURB and he says, "now these cages and enclosed prisons are just empty, and as the federal government works to expand ICE detention, they are ripe for the picking."
CURB is a statewide organization with a mission to reduce the number of people incarcerated, close prisons and jails, and shift wasteful spending away from incarceration toward community-based solutions.
Kaneda says California now has new tools to stop ICE from taking over closed prisons: First, the state can sell or lease shuttered prisons once they’re declared no longer needed. Second, it can begin leasing them immediately. Third, once a site goes through the AB 137 process, it’s legally locked from ever being used for detention again.
"Here's the catch—the law only works if we use it. And that's why we are calling on the governor to act fast." Kaneda said.
23ABC also reached out to the ACLU of Southern California to ask what the potential impact could be here in Kern County. Oliver Ma, with the ACLU SoCal is an Immigrants’ Rights Attorney and he says, "Over the last 3 years, the average population in this detention center was just 50 people, and each year they charge taxpayers $350 million. So that comes out to $7 million per detainee."
The federal government has allocated $45 billion to expand immigration detention centers across the country, including opening new facilities and increasing capacity.
"That is actually to construct new detention centers. The cost of actually housing people in these centers is going to be a lot higher than the $45 billion." Ma said.
California City could be the next private detention center to be repurposed. It is said to be larger than the one in Bakersfield—five times the size. Ma says that means it could cost taxpayers much more than the Bakersfield facility.
As mentioned, the next ICE detention center to open in Kern County may happen in California City. More of these centers could come later on.
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