“The US government must provide detainees at a California immigration detention center with adequate medical care, access to attorneys, and “temperature-appropriate clothing and blankets”, a federal judge has ruled. The order came on Tuesday in response to a lawsuit filed by seven people detained at the California City detention facility in November, alleging they had been denied essential medications, sufficient food and sanitary housing conditions.

“Residents at the facility had previously described the center as a “torture chamber” and “hell on earth”

“”Most of the people held in California City have no criminal record whatsoever, and yet the government treats them worse than the highest-security criminals,” said Cody Harris, a partner at Keker, Van Nest & Peters, the law firm representing the plaintiffs alongside the Prison Law Office and the ACLU National Prison Project.”