A private prisons contractor is suing California and a Kern County health officer over a state law signed this year that allegedly violates the Constitution.
GEO Group argues in the lawsuit that filed last week that Senate Bill 1132 violates the supremacy clause of the Constitution by giving state control over federal contractors.
The backstory: SB 1132 gives county and city health officers the authority to investigate a private detention facility, including all of California’s Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) detention centers.
- Health officers already had the power to investigate county jails, publicly operated detention facilities and private work furlough facilities.
The big picture: GEO Group operates a number of ICE facilities throughout the nation and is suing Gov. Gavin Newsom, Attorney General Rob Bonta and Kern County Public Health Officer Kristopher Lyons.
- Two of the group’s facilities in Kern County are Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center in Bakersfield and Golden State Annex in McFarland.
What they’re saying: “This case involves the latest in a string of attempts by the State of California to ban federal immigration enforcement in the state, or so significantly burden such efforts as to drive federal agencies and contractors involved in that constitutionally mandated national security function from California,” the lawsuit reads.
- The lawsuit alleges that California seeks to directly control the federal immigration operations of ICE and its contractors and replace the federal detention standards with its own state standards.
