Legislation written by a San Francisco lawmaker calls for a hefty tax on corporations operating for-profit immigration detention centers in California.
If passed, Assembly Bill 1633, authored by Assemblymember Matt Haney, D-San Francisco, will impose a 50% tax on the gross receipts of companies operating immigration detention centers in California, and the revenue will be used to support legal services for immigrant communities in the state.
“While corporations generate profit,” said Haney at a news conference on Friday, “the people inside have reported conditions that no human being should be forced to endure.”
Haney was speaking outside the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in San Bernardino County, where four detained individuals died between September 2025 and March of this year, according to a review of conditions in California’s detention centers published by state Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office in May.
The review noted poor and inhumane conditions at the Adelanto facility, which is owned and operated by Florida-based company The GEO Group Inc.
The number of individuals detained at the facility rose from seven in 2023 to 1,570 in July 2025, and the sudden increase in population contributed to the conditions at the facility, the report said.
Detainees were given unsafe food, unclean drinking water, and did not have access to adequate healthcare, the review found.
Medical care deficiencies cited
The families of all four detainees who died between September and March alleged medical care deficiencies.
The most recent of those four was Jose Guadalupe Ramos-Solano, a 52-year-old detainee who died in March because of a COVID-19-induced pneumonia that left him sick for days, Haney said.
“This is what happens when you turn over human beings to for-profit corporations, who are interested in profits, who are driven by mandates of ICE, which mandates cruelty, which provides for no actual oversight,” Haney said, referring to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“If they find this tax cost-prohibitive and they shut down, that’d be perfectly fine with us.”
Assemblymember Matt Haney
AB 1633, which is co-authored by several Bay Area assemblymembers, including Mia Bonta, D-Oakland, Ash Kalra, D-San Jose, Alex Lee, D-Milpitas, and Liz Ortega, D-Hayward, has cleared the Assembly and is now awaiting a Senate vote.
At Friday’s news conference, Haney called on California state senators and Gov. Gavin Newsom to support the legislation and hold corporations running detention facilities financially accountable for their actions.
“The harms that they are causing in our state are hugely, hugely costly for our communities and they should be taxed accordingly,” said Haney. “If they find this tax cost-prohibitive and they shut down, that’d be perfectly fine with us.”