"Florida Based Company Suing California For Law Ending Operation Of Private Prisons and Immigration Detention Facilities" 5 Jan 2020

A private detention company based in Florida is suing the State of California for signing into law Assembly Bill 32 that ends contracts with for-profit prisons. Newport Beach law firm Newmeyer and Dillion are representing the GEO Group that operates 130 detention facilities throughout the United States. The new law signed by Governor Gavin Newsom in October makes California responsible for incarcerating all its prisoners in state-run facilities and forces all four ICE detention centers to be phased out and closed by 2028.

The GEO Group claims California’s law banning private prisons interferes with the federal government by blocking the U.S. government from detaining illegal immigrants in private facilities within the state. The state will have almost 6,000 fewer beds available for prisoners when one of the GEO Groups prisons are shuttered...

Attorney Michael McClellan with Newmeyer and Dillion wrote in the lawsuit, “... the state of California seeks to subvert these principles, asserting the authority to regulate and undermine the United States government in the exercise of sovereign powers undoubtedly within the supreme sphere of federal action.”...

Assemblyman Rob Bonta (D-Oakland), said the bill is powerful. “We’ve all seen the horrific humanitarian crisis playing out along the border. No human being deserves to be held in the well-documented cruel conditions in these for-profit, private facilities. For that reason, AB 32 was expanded to cover civil detention facilities as well as prisons.”