Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2007. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
Associated Press - December 27, 2007
The Mira Loma Detention Center will now be able to hold 1,400 people.
The facility is run by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. A change to the existing contract to add beds was signed in November and approved this month by the county Board of Supervisors.
"We still don't know definitively" when the expansion will take place, said Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
"We do anticipate increasing our population at Mira Loma in the coming months," she said.
The space is needed because more immigrants are being detained for immigration violations in the Los Angeles area, and because the detention center in San Pedro, which housed more than 400 immigrants, was closed in October for repairs. The detainees there were moved elsewhere.
The Los Angeles area also has seen a crackdown on illegal immigrants who have committed crimes. The number of those detained after being released from jails and prisons has risen from 707 in October 2006 to 1,742 last month, Kice said.
However, civil rights groups note that despite the extra beds, the Mira Loma facility still will not handle detainees with violent crime convictions or those with serious health problems such as AIDS.
They are being shipped to facilities in other states.
"Even though it will be the biggest detention facility in the state, it does not replace San Pedro in terms of housing a broad range of detainees, including those with HIV or other chronic health issues," said Nora Preciado, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California.
Nationwide, the government houses about 30,000 immigrants at its own facilities and in centers and jails run by private firms and local agencies. Those include a privately run center in San Diego that houses 1,200 immigrants.
Lancaster is about 70 miles north of Los Angeles.
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