For close to a decade, a federal immigrant detention center in Imperial County has avoided paying a large share of its property taxes through an exemption typically reserved for charities.
A KPBS investigation uncovered the unusual arrangement in May. The investigation found that state and local officials have excused the Imperial Regional Detention Facility’s owner — a local nonprofit called the Brawley Community Foundation — from paying $6 million through a state credit called the Welfare Exemption.
Meanwhile, the facility has faced allegations of abuse, including providing inadequate medical care, violating detainees’ civil rights and using solitary confinement in retaliation. Since President Donald Trump launched his mass deportation campaign, two immigrants have died after experiencing health crises at the facility.
It didn’t take long for state lawmakers to get involved. Last month, Democratic state Sen. Steve Padilla introduced legislation that would amend the Welfare Exemption to exclude private detention centers. The bill, SB 420, has quickly gained support from a range of advocacy groups as well as state and local officials.
The Imperial Regional Detention Facility is located in Padilla’s district.
“Subsidizing these facilities with charitable tax exemptions at the expense of local schools and local services betrays the community and the mission that nonprofits allege to serve,” said Padilla at an Assembly committee hearing last month.
He and other lawmakers cited KPBS’ investigation during the hearing.
The bill has faced little opposition apart from the leadership of the Brawley Community Foundation. Timothy Kelley, a founding board member of the organization and a local city councilmember and economic development official, has argued that the facility is one of the largest employers in the county.
‘Almost beyond words’
For the last decade, California has pushed back against federal immigration enforcement. The state has limited how local police can cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other federal immigration agencies and has created an economic safety net for older adults without legal status.
In the case of the Imperial Regional Detention Facility, though, county residents have effectively been subsidizing the operations of the federal detention center for years.
Two weeks ago, the Assembly Revenue and Taxation Committee held a hearing on SB 420 and discussed the arrangement in Imperial County.
Assemblymember Sharon Quirk-Silva, a Democrat from Fullerton who sits on the committee, seized on the fact that Kelley came from a farming family. The idea of someone with farming ties helping to run an immigrant detention center in Imperial County struck her as ironic.
“It’s almost beyond words,” Quirk-Silva said during the meeting. “Farming absolutely does not happen without immigrant labor. And then to turn around and build an ICE facility right there.”
“We need to be shining a light on this so this never happens again,” she added.
Kelley, meanwhile, has defended the arrangement.
Back in March, he told KPBS he felt the location was a benefit to detainees. If federal immigration officials detained someone in Imperial County, Kelley argued, having a facility nearby would mean the detainee could remain close to their family members instead of being moved across state lines.
In an email last month, Kelley added that Management and Training Corporation (MTC) — the Utah-based private prison contractor that operates the detention center — contributes both job opportunities and drives significant local economic activity.
Kelley also pointed out that the Brawley Community Foundation does pay some property taxes on the land, totaling around $2.3 million since the facility first opened in 2014.
‘We want to limit these gray areas’
SB 420 is part of a widening effort by California legislators to exercise more oversight of federal detention centers in response to the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign.
In recent months, state lawmakers have proposed a number of new restrictions, including imposing new taxes on ICE’s for-profit contractors and banning private detention centers from marking up the cost of soap and other basic products in commissaries.
The growing list of supporters for SB 420 includes a number of immigrants’ rights groups, including the Ella Baker Center For Human Rights and the California Immigrant Policy Center.
Several key state and local government bodies have signed on as well.
At their June 24 meeting, the California Board of Equalization voted to support SB 420. The Board oversees property taxes throughout the state and was partly responsible for approving the Welfare Exemption for the Imperial Regional Detention Facility in the first place.
At the urging of local immigrants’ rights advocates, the Imperial County Board of Supervisors also voted unanimously to back the bill last month. The five supervisors had not responded to previous requests for comment about the tax breaks.
Kristian Salgado, an organizer with the Imperial Liberation Collaborative, said taxes from the detention facility could have gone to supporting public infrastructure like schools, parks and public safety services.
“At a time when the Board of Supervisors has been very vocal about the struggles and finances of meeting community demands, taxpayers should not be forced to indirectly subsidize private detention operations through tax loopholes,” Salgado said during a Board meeting last month.
Imperial County Assessor Robert Menvielle also expressed support for SB 420.
Menvielle’s office was jointly responsible, along with the Board of Equalization, for awarding the exemption to the Brawley Community Foundation. Menvielle had previously declined to comment on the tax breaks, telling KPBS that he recused himself from all decisions related to the Imperial Regional Detention Facility because his cousins used to own the land.
But in an interview with KPBS on Monday, Menvielle said the current version of state law leaves too much open to interpretation.
“It would be better for every assessor's office in the state,” he said. “We want to limit these gray areas.”
The legislature is currently set to discuss the bill again in August.
An uncertain road ahead
Kelley has suggested that the bill could change whether MTC continues to operate the Imperial Regional Detention Facility.
In an email to KPBS, Kelley warned that the company makes slim profit margins from running the detention center and has at times operated at a loss in previous years.
The Imperial County detention center holds up to 782 detainees. In 2022, ICE reported that it spent more than $44 million on the facility every year.
“MTC cannot operate at a loss and has other options in Arizona and New Mexico that have less risk,” Kelley wrote. “I am trying to retain them as they have been a great partner.”
MTC did not respond to a request for comment.
Meanwhile, one state lawmaker said California’s top law enforcement official has been probing the foundation’s ownership of the detention center.
During last month’s Assembly committee hearing, Democratic Assemblymember Mike Gipson of Gardena said California Attorney General Rob Bonta had been exploring “potential investigations” into the arrangement.
It’s unclear if Bonta’s office has actually opened a formal investigation. When contacted by KPBS last week, Gipson’s office said the lawmaker could not be reached for comment. A spokesperson for Bonta declined to answer KPBS’ questions.
Kelley did not respond to a question about whether he had been contacted by Bonta’s office.
Menvielle’s office has also launched its own review of the tax breaks. The assessor told KPBS that his staff has asked the county’s lawyers to review their approval of the Welfare Exemption.
Menvielle also said two of his staff members recently conducted a limited, in-person inspection of the facility. He said they found it to be “safe and well-maintained,” but said they did not speak with detainees and could not attest to how staff were treating the detainees.
Menvielle said his staff conducts annual inspections of the exterior of the facility, but did not know how many times his staff had inspected the interior.
