WASHINGTON, D.C. — California's landmark ban on private prisons and immigrant detention facilities saw its fate sealed when a federal court officially repealed the 2020 law.
In a win for private prison contractors, a final judgment in May declared Assembly Bill 32 unconstitutional as applied to private detention contracts for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agencies, though the ban remains in place for private prisons in the state.
The ban was enacted amid mounting reports of unsafe conditions and health violations at detention facilities, including moldy food, overuse of solitary confinement and dangerous delays in medical care. Following a 2020 investigation by The Times into violence against detainees at California's privately run federal immigration detention centers, the newspaper sued the Department of Homeland Security for records of abuse nationwide.
