A program that aimed to bring thousands of Angelenos living with serious mental illness under court-led care remains far below initial participation projections, a review of county data shows.

LAist reported earlier this year that participation in the CARE Court program in Los Angeles County was relatively low — a little more than 380 petitions more than a year after its launch.

Immigrants detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have sued the Trump administrationover what they describe as inhumane and unlawful treatment at California’s largest immigration detention center, according to anACLU press release.

The privately owned California City Detention Facility in Kern County, as reported in the lawsuit, has subjected detainees to “abuse, excessive isolation, denial of basic necessities including medical care,” the release reads.

In the lead-up to the passage of Senate Bill 43 last year, Californians debated its impact on human rights. The bill would broaden the definition of  “gravely disabled” to include some people with substance use disorders, allowing California to force them into treatment against their will if they’re determined to be unable to provide for their basic needs. 

For four consecutive days last month, a group of Los Angeles County students was suspended after a fight broke out in their classroom inside a juvenile detention facility.

This is according to Stacy Nuñez, an education attorney representing one of the students, who said her client was among those suspended and questions why he was penalized before the facility called a meeting to discuss other behavioral interventions.

A federal ACLU lawsuit filed in November 2025 alleges inhumane conditions at the California City Detention Facility, California’s largest immigration detention center, where about 800 people are now held roughly 100 miles north of Los Angeles. The complaint, brought on behalf of seven men detained there, describes sewage bubbling up from shower drains, a lack of basic medical care including regular insulin for diabetics, and people forced to use dirty bandages over open sores.

Fernando Gomez Ruiz had been eating at a lunch truck outside Home Depot when agents arrested him and about 10 others in early October. The diabetic father of two, who has lived in the Los Angeles area for 22 years, was detained and then quickly transferred to California’s biggest detention facility, where he’s been unable to get insulin regularly and now nurses a worsening hole in his foot. He fears now not only being deported, but losing a foot.

Seven people detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sued the Trump administration over inhumane conditions at California’s largest immigration detention center, the privately owned California City Detention Facility located in Kern County.

“The High Cost of Solitary” is the eleventh in Solitary Watch’s series of fact sheets that offer information, analysis, and resources on a variety of topics related to solitary confinement. Depending on the facility, solitary units cost between tens and hundreds of millions of dollars per year—approximately three times as much as other forms of incarceration. Written by Jack Warshal, this fact sheet breaks down the literal costs associated with solitary confinement and the immeasurable costs borne by those forced to live in isolation. Solitary Watch 

California’s newest and largest immigration detention center is dangerous for disabled people and others in its care, according to a report this week from a state disability rights watchdog agency.

The findings come as CoreCivic, the private prison company that operates the detention facility in the Mojave Desert town of California City, is also being sued for operating without permits.

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.