Private Company Investigating Rapes at California ICE Detention Center Instead of Sheriff
In 2025, officials with the San Diego County Sheriff’s Office failed to investigate at least seven reported cases of sexual assault that occured at Otay Mesa immigration detention center, a facility run by private prison profiteer CoreCivic that locks up nearly 1,500 federal immigration detainees.
As reported by CalMatters, a 2020 memorandum of understanding (MOU) between CoreCivic and the sheriff’s department granted Otay Mesa’s warden Christopher LaRose the authority to decide whether or not to investigate rape allegations. CoreCivic, in a response to CalMatters, said that it had conducted administrative investigations for each of the seven sexual assault cases, but that the company does not conduct criminal investigations because it is not a law enforcement agency.
CoreCivic operates two of seven private immigrant prisons located across California, and it isn’t clear if similar MOUs exist between these facilities and local law enforcement agencies.
The Otay Mesa prison is the subject of a separate legal battle with San Diego County as a lawsuit claims the company illegally blocked a public health inspection of the facility. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had initially cleared county officials for the inspection, but that decision was reversed when the officials arrived, according to the lawsuit.
Source: CalMatters
As a digital subscriber to Prison Legal News, you can access full text and downloads for this and other premium content.
Already a subscriber? Login