ICE is “unnecessarily” placing dozens of immigrants detained at its largest California facility in criminal prison-like solitary confinement, according to observations from a disability rights watchdog group that toured the civil detention center. The findings from Disability Rights California’s report, published Monday, appear to contradict denials from the California City detention center’s private operator, CoreCivic, that immigrants are being held in solitary confinement.

Many families are bracing for the worst - cuts that will dramatically impact their ability to care for their children beyond their most basic needs. Many more families are in a state of flux, uncertain what resources will, or will not, be available to them in just a few weeks and therefore unable to prepare.

Disability Rights California has denounced the Trump administration’s decision to lay off a large number of Department of Education workers responsible for administering special education funding, guidance and monitoring under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The layoffs took effect Oct. 13 and were first reported by NPR.

California is making major changes to its CARE Court program — a statewide system designed to connect people struggling with severe mental illness or homelessness to voluntary treatment.

Launching the program – formally known as the Community Assistance, Recovery And Empowerment Act – in 2023, California became the first state in the nation to push such an effort.

Gov. Newsom introduced CARE Court to bring more people experiencing severe mental illness into treatment. It has helped fewer people than he projected, but a new law will make more people eligible for it.

With the Trump administration again threatening mass firings of federal employees, Gov. Gavin Newsom must soon decide whether California landlords must accept Social Security benefit delays as an excuse not to evict tenants who fall behind on rent.

A 39-year-old former DACA recipient died in ICE custody this week. Ismael Ayala-Uribe had been detained at Adelanto ICE Processing Center near Victorville since August, when he was arrested by immigration agents.

Community members, students from the Developing Virtue Secondary School, and one former patient from the Mendocino State Hospital gathered together at the Ukiah Cemetery on Monday to honor deceased patients, whose cremains were moved from the long-shuttered State Hospital to a single grave at the cemetery.

Congress has cut federal funding for public media — a $3.4 million loss for LAist. We count on readers like you to protect our nonprofit newsroom. Become a monthly member and sustain local journalism.

Los Angeles County is making progress on bringing dozens of new mental health beds and supportive housing units to the expansive Metropolitan State Hospital campus in Norwalk.

A second investigation by Disability Rights California (DRC) has once again revealed inhumane conditions at a southern California ICE detention center imprisoning immigrants. The facility is called Adelanto Detention Center and is owned and operated by a private company: The GEO Group.

A report by Disability Rights California and officials say detainees with disabilities inside the U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Adelanto detention center are subjected to abuse and neglect.

The advocacy group “has grave concerns that the recent surge of individuals being held in Adelanto will only place individuals with disabilities at even greater risk of abuse, neglect, and serious harm,” the report says.

LOS ANGELES – Disability and immigrant rights groups shared during a press conference outside of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field office downtown Thursday that conditions at the Adelanto Detention Facility in San Bernardino County, a privately run prison operated by the GEO Group under contract with ICE, are putting detainees at risk.

As cities across California ban homeless encampments and Gov. Gavin Newsom encourages more sweeps, San Jose lawmakers are standing up against criminalizing homelessness.

State Sen. Sasha Perez along with Assemblymembers Ash Kalra, Alex Lee and Matt Haney have co-authored a bill that would make it illegal for cities to prohibit organizations or people from helping homeless residents. Senate Bill 643 has passed the Senate and is being considered in the Assembly.

As cities across California ban homeless encampments and Gov. Gavin Newsom encourages more sweeps, San Jose lawmakers are standing up against criminalizing homelessness.

State Sen. Sasha Perez along with Assemblymembers Ash Kalra, Alex Lee and Matt Haney have co-authored a bill that would make it illegal for cities to prohibit organizations or people from helping homeless residents. Senate Bill 643 has passed the Senate and is being considered in the Assembly.

President Donald Trump’s new law-and-order approach to homelessness bears several striking resemblances to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s.

The budget reconciliation megabill signed by Trump on July 4 is among the latest in a series of federal and state policy choices this year that will have devastating impacts on poor people, disabled people, and people who use drugs across the US.

A disability-rights group says immigrant detainees inside a federal detention center near Victorville are being abused and neglected, in part because the population inside the facility has grown rapidly in recent weeks, according to a new report.

Today, during Disability Pride Month, Congresswoman Lateefah Simon (D-CA-12) and Senator Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.) introduced the Disability and Age in Jury Service Nondiscrimination Act to prohibit excluding a person from federal jury service based on disability or age. Currently, federal law prohibits excluding a person from federal jury service on account of “race, color, religion, sex, national origin, or economic status.” Disability and age are not included, which allows for discrimination against seniors and people with disabilities. 

I wasn’t born deaf. My hearing loss happened over time. When I was 4 years old, I nearly drowned in a swimming pool. The water pressure from that accident damaged my eardrums.  The full impact took years to unfold.

I identify as a late-deafened adult. I lost my hearing after I had already acquired spoken language. Because of that, I was raised in the hearing world and developed language through listening and speaking before transitioning to visual forms of communication.

With the sun high over the State Capitol, a coalition of California and national civil rights leaders gathered on Thursday, June 26, 2025, to deliver an urgent message to Governor Gavin Newsom: commute the death sentences of all 574 individuals currently on California’s death row.