California Town Lets Private ICE Detention Centers Police Themselves

Two years ago, immigration attorney Mario Valenzuela visited a client at the Golden State Annex, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center operated by the private prison giant The GEO Group Inc. in the small agricultural town of McFarland in California’s San Joaquin Valley.

Valenzuela’s client had a black eye and bruises on his body, he said. The client told Valenzuela that he’d been surrounded and beaten by seven or eight fellow detainees in the detention center’s recreation yard and was taken to a hospital emergency room.  His client, who didn’t authorize his attorney to give his name, wanted to report the assault to the police, Valenzuela said. 

But Valenzuela told Capital & Main that when he contacted the McFarland Police Department on his client’s behalf, a department supervisor told him the department didn’t respond to calls for service at the detention center. 

The lack of response was no oversight. According to McFarland police officials and records, the department does not respond to calls at Golden State Annex or at a second ICE facility in the city, Central Valley Annex, which is also operated by The GEO Group.  

In fact, a 2024 memorandum of understanding between the city of McFarland and the GEO Group gives GEO’s civilian administrators responsibility for specific law enforcement duties at its facilities. GEO staff is responsible for detaining people “suspected of violating the law” at the facilities and processing “evidence obtained from an arrest, including but not limited to weapons, narcotics and currency,” even though GEO administrators are not sworn police officers. If GEO needs McFarland Police Department to assist in “other than critical incidents” at the detention center, GEO must reimburse the department for the officers’ pay and overtime. 

The GEO Group is also responsible for investigating sexual abuse and assault allegations at the facility, according to the agreement.

Kyle Virgien, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s National Prison Project, who reviewed the agreement, said it “is troubling to let GEO Group investigate itself in that way.” The agreement, he said, is “set up so that if an employee of GEO Group is accused of sexual assault, GEO investigates it, and the local police department doesn’t.”

“Private prison companies have a strong financial incentive to make it appear as though nothing is going wrong in private prisons.”

~ Kyle Virgien, attorney, ACLU National Prison Project

Niels Frenzen, a professor at the University of Southern California’s Gould School of Law, said the apparent handover of police powers to civilian employees of the GEO Group has “no basis” in state law.

The arrangement between GEO and the city — and allegations of abuse raised by attorneys and a former detainee who claimed she was sexually assaulted inside Golden State Annex — raise questions about whether potential crimes committed in McFarland detention centers go unreported, uninvestigated and unpunished.  

The majority of ICE detainees are housed in private facilities in dozens of cities across the country. It is unclear whether other cities have made similar agreements that cede some police authority to private prison operators. 

“Private prison companies have a strong financial incentive to make it appear as though nothing is going wrong in private prisons,” Virgien said. “So it’s definitely worrisome when the government decides not to investigate, because it’s likely that a private prison company will do what it can to avoid finding that it did something wrong.”

McFarland Mayor Saul Ayon, a former Kern County sheriff’s deputy who is running for the 35th District seat in the California Assembly, didn’t respond to Capital & Main’s repeated requests to answer questions about the purpose of the agreement and its legal basis. McFarland police Chief Adrian Olmos didn’t respond to a phone call from Capital & Main. 

Nina Sheridan, a spokesperson for California Attorney General Rob Bonta, said in an email that the office could not provide “legal advice or analysis” of the McFarland agreement. Asked if the office was investigating the city’s arrangement with GEO Group, Sheridan said, “We are also unable to comment on, even to confirm or deny, potential or ongoing investigations.” 

GEO Group spokesman Chris Ferreira didn’t answer specific questions about the agreement, including whether GEO officers were trained to carry out police duties or whether the agreement allowed the private prison firm to investigate itself. But Ferreira said in an email that the company is “proud” of its work “supporting the law enforcement mission of ICE.”  

In 2024, at least one case in which a detainee alleged sexual abuse also went unreported to law enforcement. Loba Mendez, now 30, reported that GEO guards sexually abused her at Golden State Annex. In a complaint filed with the Department of Homeland Security Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, the DHS Inspector General and the agency’s Office of Immigration Detention Ombudsman, her attorneys said that during routine pat-down searches “male staff would spread her [Mendez’s] legs open, pin her against the wall and rub her breasts, groin, inner thighs and buttocks in an aggressive and sexual manner.”  

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Mendez, who reported that GEO staff harassed and mocked her because she is transgender, said she also filed internal grievances and complaints under the Prison Rape Elimination Act, a federal law that requires prisons, including private prisons, to maintain procedures for preventing and reporting sexual abuse and sexual assault.   

But Mendez said in an interview that no one in law enforcement ever contacted her, even though ICE detention standards require sexual abuse and assault allegations that are potentially criminal to be reported to law enforcement and for law enforcement to investigate the allegations. 

“Things are really difficult,” Mendez told Capital & Main, “especially when no one from the community can come in and really oversee the situation.” 

Virgien said the city’s hands-off arrangement with prison operators is a cause for concern because conditions inside detention centers have worsened since President Donald Trump’s second term began. 

“The city’s decision to cede police functions to the prison company is worrying because of GEO Group’s human rights track record,” Virgien said. “It’s certainly concerning that this private for-profit company with a history of problems at its facilities is being given any law enforcement authority.” 

Advocates like Virgien said as conditions inside detention centers have deteriorated, detention oversight has been gutted, and it has become more difficult to report poor treatment and inhumane conditions. Last year, the Trump administration laid off more than 70% of the staff at the Department of Homeland Security’s Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Office. In May, it eliminated the Office of Immigration Detention Ombudsman altogether. Several members of Congress, who are legally entitled to visit ICE facilities without notice, have been denied access to detention centers, including those in New York, California, New Jersey and Illinois, since Trump’s second term began. A federal court ruled against the administration’s attempts to require Congress members to provide advance notice of their visits.

Detainee Loba Mendez said she endured abusive pat-down searches for three months until GEO administrators agreed to allow a female staff member to conduct searches.

More than 60,000 detainees were held in 200 facilities in the U.S as of March 2026.

Florida-based GEO Group is the nation’s largest private prison firm. Both GEO and its closest competitor, CoreCivic, the second-largest such company, face numerous lawsuits by detainees and their family members alleging wrongful death, medical neglect, forced labor and unsafe and unsanitary living conditions in their detention centers. 

The GEO Group’s Ferreira said in a statement, “GEO mandates zero tolerance towards all forms of sexual abuse and sexual harassment in all its facilities,” adding that the company is “contractually required” to follow U.S. Department of Homeland Security Prison Rape Elimination Act regulations and ICE detention standards.

ICE spokesperson Jason Sweeney did not answer Capital & Main’s questions about the McFarland agreement but sent a statement saying that ICE detention centers follow national standards, “which establish requirements for the safe, secure, and humane custody of individuals in civil immigration proceedings.” 

The statement also said that “being in detention is a choice” and that “the United States is offering illegal aliens $2,600 and a free flight to self-deport now.” 

ICE standards require Golden State Annex, and all detention centers, to “ensure that each allegation of sexual abuse or assault is investigated by an appropriate criminal or administrative investigative entity.” 

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Mendez said she endured abusive pat-down searches for three months until GEO administrators agreed to allow a female staff member to conduct searches, according to her 2024 complaint to the DHS Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties. The complaint further alleged that in retaliation for filing grievances and complaints, GEO staff placed Mendez in solitary confinement for 24 days. She said she had insufficient drinking water and that the water supply to her toilet was shut off.

“I had to eat and sleep with the smell of urine and feces,” Mendez told Capital & Main, because guards would delay turning on the water to flush the toilet. 

In solitary, she said she would receive visits from a high-ranking GEO staff member who made sexually suggestive gestures while asking what she was willing to do to return to the general prison population. She said she felt threatened because he would sometimes unbuckle his belt out of view of the detention center cameras. She said she didn’t formally report the harassment because she feared further retaliation. 

In response to Capital & Main’s specific questions about allegations of sexual abuse and retaliation at Golden State Annex, Sweeney, the ICE spokesperson, said, “We are looking into the claims in your email,” but didn’t provide further information to Capital & Main after several requests to do so. 

“As it relates to allegations regarding retaliation, GEO has a zero-tolerance policy with respect to staff misconduct,” Ferreira said. The company’s grievance process “is grounded in accessibility, confidentiality, fairness, objectivity and integrity, without fear of retaliation,” Ferreira added. 

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After Valenzuela’s unsuccessful attempt to report his client’s assault to McFarland police, he filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division via an online portal but said he received no response. A report to the FBI tip line also went unanswered, he said. 

The Department of Justice press office didn’t respond to Capital & Main’s inquiries about the reports.

Valenzuela said he also received no response after making emailed reports to ICE. 

He added that a GEO Group representative sent him a message saying the company was investigating his claim, but Valenzuela said he received no further communication from GEO. “It was an abusive assault and the person did suffer injuries,” he said. But, he added, “Nobody ever came and took a report from my client.” 

“The McFarland Police Department does not respond to calls for service within the GEO Group facility.”

~ Sylvia Tafoya, communications records supervisor, McFarland Police Department  

Neither Ferreira nor Sweeney answered Capital & Main’s questions about Valenzuela’s attempts to report the alleged assault on his client.

Valenzuela said his inability to report the assault could have deprived his client of his right to apply for temporary legal status in the U.S. under the federal Victims of Trafficking and Violent Crimes Act. Under the 26-year-old law, some crime victims are allowed to remain in the U.S. to cooperate in the prosecution of alleged perpetrators. But “you need law enforcement” to take a police report, Valenzuela said. If not, he said, “you’re screwed.” Valenzuela said he eventually stopped trying to report the assault to authorities because his client had other grounds to apply to remain in the country under the trafficking victims law. 

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Heliodoro Moreno, a Contra Costa County public defender, said the McFarland Police Department also rebuffed him when he attempted in 2024 to report a crime against a client at Golden State Annex. He told Capital & Main that he didn’t have his client’s authorization to identify him or to discuss the incident, but added that If detainees can’t report crime to law enforcement, “it has people wondering who they can report incidents to”. 

In response to two separate California Public Records Act requests, McFarland Police Department communications records supervisor Sylvia Tafoya told Capital & Main,  “The McFarland Police Department does not respond to calls for service within the GEO Group facility.” 

Still, the city’s agreement with GEO says that local police will respond to “institutional emergencies and critical incidents” but does not define them.

Capital & Main requested records such as McFarland Police Department requests for reimbursement for officers’ time or booking fees, records of Miranda warnings or requests by GEO that the police department conduct searches or criminal history reports. Tafoya said that there were none because the local police department doesn’t respond to calls for service at the detention center. 

Tafoya said that when GEO staff report a sexual abuse incident or assault, “per our MOU, we provide them with an incident number when a PREA [Prison Rape Elimination Act] incident has occurred in their facility.”  

Tafoya provided reports of four sexual abuse cases and one case of either sexual abuse or assault at Golden State Annex in 2024 and 2025. She reported that eight 911 calls came from the detention center in 2025.

Tafoya also provided a copy of the agreement between GEO and McFarland in response to the request. 

City records show that GEO Group agreed to pay McFarland a maximum of more than $600,000 per year to offset the facilities’ effects on city services.

When Capital & Main made an additional public records request for more information about the incidents, Tafoya again said in her written response that the department does not “respond to calls for service within the GEO Group facilities and as such, does not have the information requested.”  

The agreement between the City of McFarland and GEO Group is based on a section of the California Penal Code that says that some prison guards can be considered “peace officers.” 

But that provision, known as Section 830.5, doesn’t cover GEO employees, said Jana Sanford-Miller, spokesperson for the California Board of State and Community Corrections, which makes rules and sets training standards for correctional officers. “PC 830.5 does not apply to private prisons,” Sanford-Miller said in an email. “The ‘correctional’ staff referenced in 830.5 must work for CDCR,” she said, referring to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, which operates the state prison system.

City records obtained through a public records request showed that in addition to paying for nonemergency police services performed at the detention centers, GEO also agreed to pay the city a maximum of more than $600,000 per year to offset the facilities’ effects on police, fire and other city services. GEO also contributed to the city with the $1 sale of a seven-acre parcel of land that McFarland plans to use for a new police station, according to Bakersfield TV station ABC23.

Other local police departments have also reportedly failed to respond to reports of criminal activity inside detention centers. 

The nonprofit news outlet CalMatters reported in March that in the last year, the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department failed to investigate seven rape allegations at the Otay Mesa Detention Center, which CoreCivic operates for ICE. 

In October 2025, the chief of the Tacoma Police Department in Washington pledged to treat calls for service from GEO Group’s massive Northwest ICE Processing Center as it would any others in the city. The commitment came after the University of Washington Center for Human Rights exposed the department’s failure to investigate assaults in a 2025 report. The report found that 157 assaults were reported at the detention center between 2015 and 2025. Only two of those cases — in which GEO staff were victims — were prosecuted. 

Mendez spent two years in detention before she finally abandoned her legal case to remain in the United States and returned to El Salvador earlier this year. She said she had feared returning because of bias against LGBTQ people.  

In May 2025, the Department of Homeland Security launched an aggressive effort to promote so-called “self-deportation.” The ACLU’s Virgien said he thinks the inhumane conditions Mendez and others described are a means to convince detainees to do so, adding: “The cruelty is the point.”

Mendez, who has reunited with family members and remained safe since her return, said detention conditions had become unbearable.

“It wasn’t a meal of steak and lobster I was demanding. It was just to be treated as a human being,” Mendez said. 

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