A federal judge ordered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to stop admitting new detainees at a private facility run by GEO Group Inc., saying ICE and Geo Group had "put the detainees at serious risk of irreparable harm" and treated COVID-19 safety measures as "not worth the trouble."
The Mesa Verde detention center in Bakersfield is the site of a growing COVID-19 outbreak.
Emails that were made public during litigation reveal that an ICE field office director seemed to be more concerned about logistical issues than testing detainees.