'Bill of rights' for civil immigration detainees sent to Newsom's desk

Sofia Williams, The Sacramento Bee on Aug 27, 2026

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The California Senate passed a “bill of rights” Wednesday codifying protection for immigrants in private civil detention facilities. It now goes to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk.

Senate Bill 942, termed the “Civil Detainees Bill of Rights Act,” would protect the rights of those in private civil immigration detention facilities to access medical and mental health treatment, clean drinking water, food that is safe to consume and livable quarters. The proposed bill of rights also guarantees the freedom of religion and the ability to send and receive correspondence.

The bill extends existing regulations on California’s state-run civil confinement facilities to private, for-profit detention centers used to hold individuals awaiting adjudication in immigration court. It would create the first state-level bill of rights protecting those in private civil immigration detention facilities in the U.S.

“The expectation is that … the attorney general will exercise some oversight and ensure that these protections are in place,” said bill author, Sen. Anna Caballero, a Democrat. “These are people that are detained civilly, and sometimes they’re there for years. We want to make sure we’re treating them humanely, which is what is expected of California, and I think the international community as well. We want to be the example.”

Currently, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is holding a record number of individuals in civil immigration detention facilities, about 10% of whom are detained in California. Nearly 90% of detainees are held in privately owned facilities.

“The challenge with these facilities is that the oversight and accountability that normally goes hand-in-hand with detention that you see in jails and prisons is largely absent. And unfortunately what we’ve seen in the last year or so is, that what little oversight did exist in these facilities, is being eliminated or defunded at the federal level,” said Hamid Yazdan, an advocacy director with Immigrant Defense Advocates.

The bill was co-sponsored by the IDA and the California Department of Justice, and garnered the support of several other immigrant advocacy groups. The measure received bipartisan support in both the Senate and Assembly.

“In the last six months, there have tragically been six deaths of individuals detained inside private detention centers, two of which occurred in my district,” said Democratic Sen. Steve Padilla, during debate on the Senate floor on May 26. “These deaths are not isolated incidents. They’re a reflection of a system that lacks oversight and accountability. While we cannot regulate federal immigration enforcement, California can and should ensure that for-profit private businesses are meeting basic health and safety safeguards.”

Initial concerns with the bill arose because of potentially duplicative oversight of health facilities already licensed for strict state-level inspection. Leah Barros, a legislative advocate for the California Hospital Association, testified in an April 15 committee hearing that the group had worked closely with Caballero to amend the bill accordingly.

“As the bill progressed, we heard about the kinds of abuses that were happening: water that was not clean, food that was ill-prepared or moldy, the failure to provide individuals the opportunity to practice their religion, the restrooms that were … not hygienic,” Caballero said in an interview with The Sacramento Bee. “We changed the focus of the bill to focus on it as a rights issue, and then delineated what our expectations are, and they’re basic.”

If signed, it would take effect immediately. Caballero said she added the urgency clause because a recent uptick in immigration enforcement activity has heightened widespread concerns regarding the health and safety of detention centers.

“There are thousands of people detained in California right now under a civil detainment, and I felt very strongly that we needed to get the bill passed,” Caballero said. “The urgency clause means that it goes into effect immediately; otherwise, it would have to wait until January, and there’s no reason to wait until January.”

Bills with an urgency clause require a two-thirds vote in both chambers, rather than a simple majority, to pass to the governor’s desk. The measure cleared the hurdle, passing 64-11 on the Assembly floor Tuesday and 31-5 on the Senate floor Wednesday.

“Given the really serious health and safety issues that are present in facilities in California, people wanted to see action,” Panah said. “This bill provides concrete accountability. It’s not an abstract or theoretical framework, and it’s not simply a headline. It actually provides meaningful standards and a real enforcement mechanism, and we felt time was of the essence.”