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- Appendix A—Scope and Methodology
- Appendix B—Demographic Information of Detainees and Unaccompanied Children Housed in Detention Facilities in California
Fiscal Years 2013–14 Through 2017–18 - Appendix C—Detainee Deaths in Custody
Fiscal Years 2013–14 Through 2017–18
Appendix A
Scope and Methodology
The Audit Committee directed the California State Auditor to examine city, county, or other local government detention centers that contract with ICE, including determining the actual costs of detaining individuals covered by these contracts and whether requirements for housing detainees were met. Table A lists the objectives that the Audit Committee approved and the methods we used to address them.
Audit Objective |
Method
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1 | Review and evaluate the laws, rules, and regulations significant to the audit objectives. | Reviewed and evaluated laws, rules, regulations, contracts, and cooperative agreements significant to detention facilities that house detainees and unaccompanied children. |
2 | Determine the roles and responsibilities, if any, of Community Corrections, or other state or local entities in overseeing contract jails. | Reviewed laws and regulations that establish the roles and responsibilities of Community Corrections, the Attorney General, and county grand juries to oversee detention facilities; as well as the roles and responsibilities of Social Services to oversee community care facilities. We also interviewed Community Corrections staff and reviewed available reports on detention facilities, reviewed county grand jury reports on detention facilities, and interviewed Social Services staff and reviewed available reports on community care facilities. |
3 | Identify and evaluate for the past five fiscal years the number of individuals detained in contract jails for reasons of immigration status, and the duration and the amount of state and local funding used for these detentions. Determine the extent to which those costs include expenditures to expand contract jail facilities. |
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4 | For a selection of contract jails holding current or recent contracts with ICE to detain individuals for reasons of immigration status, determine the following: | We selected the following detention facilities:
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a. The amount of federal revenue the contract jails receive in exchange for detaining individuals on ICE’s behalf and how that revenue is being used to fund jail operations and services. In addition, if revenue is used to fund inmate programs, identify the programs and determine whether the programs are available to immigration‑related detainees. |
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b. The extent to which ICE contracts include monetary limits or caps for any categories of expenses, such as detainee medical care. If the contracts include such limits, determine whether counties and cities provide for such expenditures in excess of those limits. |
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c. Whether the contract jails’ actual costs for detaining individuals covered by these contracts have exceeded the federal revenue received in exchange for doing so. Identify the sources of state, local, or other funding that counties and cities have used to cover those extra expenses. |
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d. The extent to which contract provisions and jail protocols include requirements for housing immigration-related detainees in locations other than those used for state criminal detainees and inmates, and whether those requirements are met and are consistent with state and federal law. |
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e. To the extent possible, determine whether and to what extent immigration-related detainees contribute to overcrowding in contract jails. Also determine whether contract jails have been forced to displace or release individuals facing or convicted of nonimmigration‑related criminal charges due to overcrowding caused by the detention of individuals for immigration purposes on behalf of ICE. | Reviewed the capacity and population of the selected detention facilities. Reviewed laws and available policies for early release of inmates and determined whether detention facilities activated early release protocols. Reviewed Community Corrections’ records of early releases during the audit period. | |
5 | To the extent possible, identify and summarize age and other demographic information for immigration-related detainees between 2013 and 2018. Determine how many, if any, of such individuals died while in custody and the causes of those deaths. Determine how many of those who died were detained for civil immigration cases. |
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6 | Review and assess any other issues that are significant to the audit. | For the three California cities with intergovernmental agreements with ICE (Adelanto, McFarland, and Holtville), we reviewed the following:
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Source: Analysis of the Audit Committee’s audit request number 2018-117, as well as information and documentation identified in the column titled Method.
Assessment of Data Reliability
In performing this audit, we relied on electronic data files that we obtained from local governments and private operators of detention facilities that house detainees. These electronic data files related to counties’ cost estimates for the detention facilities where they housed detainees, Orange County’s expenditures for prescription medication, and counties’ detainee population counts. The U.S. Government Accountability Office, whose standards we are statutorily obligated to follow, requires us to assess the sufficiency and appropriateness of computer-processed information that we use to support our findings, conclusions, or recommendations. To perform this assessment, we reviewed the methodology the counties used to develop their cost estimates and found them to be reasonable, with the exception of Contra Costa’s, which we discuss here in the report. However, we did not perform completeness or accuracy testing on the data so they are of undetermined reliability. We reviewed supporting documentation for Orange County’s expenditures for prescription medication, and we found the data to be sufficiently reliable for calculating annual totals. We corroborated the counties’ detainee population data with information from Community Corrections’ inspection reports, but we did not perform completeness and accuracy testing, so they are of undetermined reliability. We recognize that these limitations may affect the precision of the numbers we present, but there is sufficient evidence in total to support our audit findings, conclusions, and recommendations.
Appendix B
Demographic Information of Detainees and Unaccompanied Children Housed in Detention Facilities in California
Fiscal Years 2013–14 Through 2017–18
The Audit Committee directed us to identify and summarize demographic information for detainees held in California. Table B.1 presents the information we gathered from the eight local government detention facilities in California that agreed to house detainees for ICE during the audit period. Table B.2 presents the information for unaccompanied children placed at Yolo Juvenile Facility. The Otay Mesa Detention Center is privately owned and operated by CoreCivic (formerly known as Corrections Corporation of America) and contracts directly with the federal government to house detainees. Thus, neither the State nor any local government has contractual involvement with Otay Mesa. While we made an FOIA request for demographic information to ICE concerning detainees at this facility, we did not receive a response as of February 20, 2019.
COUNTRY | FACILITY* | CITY OR COUNTY/PRIVATE OPERATOR | AVAILABLE BED COUNT | TOTAL DETAINEES | AVERAGE AGE | PERCENT MALE | MEXICO | GUATEMALA | EL SALVADOR | HONDURAS | INDIA | OTHER† |
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Adelanto Detention Facility | City of Adelanto / GEO | 1,940 | 34,081 | 35 | 92% | 55% | 8% | 7% | 5% | 5% | 20% |
Imperial Regional Detention Facility | City of Holtville / IVGC / MTC | 640 | 15,381 | 31 | 91 | 13 | 8 | 6 | 10 | 33 | 30 |
James A. Musick Facility | Orange County / NA |
958 | 16,453 | 34 | 91 | 55 | 10 | 9 | 5 | 4 | 17 |
Theo Lacy Facility | |||||||||||
Mesa Verde Detention Facility | City of McFarland / GEO | 400 | 10,000 | 36 | 84 | 71 | 5 | 6 | 4 | 1 | 13 |
Rio Cosumnes Correctional Facility | Sacramento County / NA | 165 | 6,493 | 37 | 98 | 70 | 5 | 8 | 3 | 1 | 13 |
West County Detention Facility‡ | Contra Costa County / NA | 269 | 8,701 | 34 | 78 | 57 | 8 | 8 | 4 | 1 | 22 |
Yuba County Jail | Yuba County / NA | 210 | 6,616 | 36 | 92 | 58 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 40 |
Source: Contracts and other documents from facility operators.
NA = Not applicable.
* The Otay Mesa Detention Center is privately owned and operated by CoreCivic (formerly known as Corrections Corporation of America) and contracts directly with the federal government to house detainees. While we made a FOIA request for demographic information to ICE, we have not received a response as of February 20, 2019.
† Other includes countries not listed and entries where the country was not specified.
‡ We identified some errors and inconsistencies in Contra Costa County’s data. However, because it is the only source of the information, we present it here.
COUNTRY | FACILITY | OPERATOR | AVAILABLE BED COUNT | TOTAL CHILDREN | AVERAGE AGE | PERCENT MALE | MEXICO | GUATEMALA | EL SALVADOR | HONDURAS | OTHER |
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Yolo County Juvenile Detention Facility | Yolo County | 24 | 340 | 16 | 100% | 44% | 9% | 16% | 29% | 2% |
Source: Contracts and other documents from facility operators.
Additionally, the data we received from the other facilities are not standardized. For instance, facilities reported citizenship, country of birth, country of origin, nationality and similar terms, all of which we categorized as country. Table B.3 and Table B.4 present information regarding the duration of stay. We defined a stay at a detention facility as each instance of an individual arriving at and leaving the facility during our audit period (July 1, 2013, through June 30, 2018). In the data, we encountered individuals who had multiple stays at the same facility. Additionally, we found instances of the same individuals appearing in different facilities. Because we provide the demographic information as background information and did not use it to draw conclusions, we did not assess the reliability of the data.
DURATION OF STAY RANGES (DAYS STAYED) |
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FACILITY | 0 TO 1 | 2 TO 30 | 31 TO 100 | 101 TO 365 | 366+ |
Adelanto Detention Facility | 16% | 37% | 27% | 18% | 2% |
Imperial Regional Detention Facility | 8 | 47 | 28 | 15 | 2 |
James A. Musick Facility and Theo Lacy Facility | 1 | 37 | 39 | 20 | 3 |
Mesa Verde Detention Facility | 37 | 31 | 22 | 9 | 1 |
Rio Cosumnes Correctional Facility* | |||||
West County Detention Facility† | |||||
Yuba County Jail | 30 | 39 | 19 | 11 | 1 |
Source: Facility operators.
* We did not include duration of stay data for Rio Cosumnes Correctional Facility because it was not comparable to the other facilities’ data and would have required significant manual reformatting.
† We did not include duration of stay data for West County Detention Facility because it included numerous errors and inconsistencies.
DURATION OF STAY RANGES (DAYS STAYED) |
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FACILITY | 0 TO 1 | 2 TO 30 | 31 TO 100 | 101 TO 365 | 366+ |
Yolo County Juvenile Detention Facility | 2% | 16% | 65% | 15% | 2% |
Source: Yolo County.
Appendix C
Detainee Deaths in Custody
Fiscal Years 2013–14 Through 2017–18
The Audit Committee directed us to determine how many, if any, of the individuals identified in the demographic information summarized in Appendix B died while in custody, what the causes of those deaths were, and whether the individuals who died were detained for civil immigration cases. Table C presents the information we gathered about the number of individuals who died while in custody.
DETENTION FACILITY NAME | NUMBER OF DEATHS | CAUSE OF DEATH | TYPE OF DETENTION |
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Adelanto | 5 | Cardiogenic shock (condition in which the heart suddenly cannot pump enough blood to meet the body’s needs), massive right ventricular infarction (heart attack), and severe ischemic heart disease (reduced blood flow to the heart) | Civil Immigration* |
Liver and kidney failure† | Civil Immigration* | ||
Hypoxic encephalopathy (brain dysfunction caused by insufficient oxygen to the organ tissues) due to hanging | Civil Immigration* | ||
Upper gastrointestinal bleeding from esophageal varices (enlarged veins in the lower esophagus), cirrhosis (scarring of the liver), and heroin and alcohol abuse | Civil Immigration* | ||
Pending‡ | Civil Immigration* | ||
Otay Mesa | 2 | Hypertensive and atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (heart condition related to high blood pressure and heart disease in the blood vessels) | Unknown§ |
Sudden cardiac death (sudden, unexpected loss of heart function, breathing, and consciousness), acute coronary syndrome (a range of conditions associated with sudden, reduced blood flow to the heart), multivessel coronary artery disease (blockages in several of the heart’s main arteries) due to arteriosclerotic vascular disease (a blood vessel disease) | Unknown§ |
Source: ICE’s documentation of deaths in ICE custody and detainee death reviews; ICE contracts; Mayo Clinic’s health information.
* Facility houses immigration detainees who are only held to assure their presence throughout the immigration process and are not charged with criminal violations.
† This is a preliminary cause of death; source documentation does not include a final cause of death.
‡ ICE has not made final cause of death information public.
§ Facility holds individuals charged with federal offenses and detained while awaiting trial or sentencing, a hearing on their immigration status, or deportation.