LOS ANGELES, CA — As ICE (immigration and Customs Enforcement) raids intensify across California, advocates are calling on Governor Gavin Newsom to permanently close the state’s deactivated prisons before they can be repurposed by the federal government as immigration detention centers, according to reporting by the Sacramento Press.
Since 2021, Governor Newsom has shuttered three state prisons, including the privately operated California City Correctional Facility, a move projected to save the state nearly $900 million annually. However, the state’s decision to maintain these facilities in “warm shutdown” status—keeping them staffed and secured despite being empty—has cost California approximately $300 million, the Sacramento Press reported.
The Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement agenda has fueled a surge in ICE operations, including workplace raids like the one recently conducted in Los Angeles’s garment district. ICE is actively scouting facilities for potential conversion into detention centers and has already toured FCI Dublin—a former women’s prison closed after widespread sexual abuse scandals—for possible use, the Sacramento Press noted…