McFarland Lets The Geo Group Staff Police Two ICE Facilities
McFarland police do not respond to calls at the Golden State Annex or Central Valley Annex, both run by the geo group. The city’s 2024 agreement with The GEO Group gives civilian administrators there authority over some law-enforcement duties, including investigating sexual abuse and assault allegations.
McFarland and The GEO Group
The memorandum of understanding covers two ICE detention centers in McFarland, California. Under it, GEO staff is responsible for detaining people suspected of violating the law at the facilities and for processing evidence from an arrest, including weapons, narcotics and currency.
GEO administrators are not sworn police officers. If the company needs McFarland Police Department help for anything other than critical incidents at the detention center, GEO must reimburse the department for officers’ pay and overtime.
Golden State Annex Report
Mario Valenzuela, an immigration attorney, contacted the McFarland Police Department on behalf of a client who wanted to report an assault at Golden State Annex. Valenzuela said his client had a black eye and bruises after being surrounded and beaten by seven or eight fellow detainees in the recreation yard, and that the client was taken to a hospital emergency room.
The client wanted to report the assault to police. Kyle Virgien, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s National Prison Project, said after reviewing the agreement that it is troubling to let GEO Group investigate itself in that way.
Niels Frenzen on State Law
Virgien also said the agreement is set up so that if an employee of GEO Group is accused of sexual assault, GEO investigates it, and the local police department doesn’t. Niels Frenzen, a professor at the University of Southern California’s Gould School of Law, said the apparent handover of police powers to civilian employees of the GEO Group has no basis in state law.
The arrangement leaves the company responsible for investigating sexual abuse and assault allegations at the facility, while McFarland police stay out of routine calls at both detention centers. For a detainee trying to report a crime, the first stop inside the facility may be GEO staff rather than sworn officers.
