Kern County is home to half of California’s immigration detention facilities, making conditions inside centers a major concern for many residents. But despite that, a presentation from Kern County Public Health has revealed the county will not be moving forward with its own inspections.
According to Kern County Public Health director Brynn Carrigan, her department is limited in carrying out health inspections as authorized by state law.
"We have no authority to do anything beyond what's already being done and it would be done in a much more limited scale than what is being done at the state level,” said Carrigan.
In other words, under the law, the county has no enforcement mechanism to issue any kind of civil penalties against ICE detention facilities.
With Kern County being home to 4 of the 8 California facilities, there have been multiple concerns regarding detainees safety, such as a recent scabies outbreak.
Here are some of the things that speakers said during public comment:
"These are exactly the types of conditions that public health inspection exists to examine.”
“These conditions need to change it is not humane, it’s not fair for people to be living in these conditions.”
“It might be easy to say that they are illegal aliens or they don’t belong here but they’re human like us, they are us.”
During her presentation, Carrigan emphasized that comprehensive review and enforcement falls on the shoulders of the state department of Justice run by Rob Bonta along with a court-ordered monitor.
Carrigan said her department has carried out Environmental Health inspections at local ICE facilities and nothing seriously wrong has been found so far.
Among those who spoke during public comment was labor and civil rights activist Dolores Huerta, who disagreed with the county’s decision to not conduct its own inspections.
“Well I think it’s a lack of their authority it obviously shows that they really don’t care, they don’t care about the people that are suddenly being detained and as we know a vast majority of them shouldn’t be there in the first place because they’re not criminals,” said Huerta.
Though no medical inspections are taking place at the county level, Carrigan says that there is pending legislation that, if approved, could give state agencies the power to impose civil penalties on ICE facilities for noncompliance.
Advocates say the fight is far from over, vowing to keep the pressure on county leaders and continue pushing for greater oversight and accountability.
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