A Kern County Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday turned into a shouting match after Supervisor Leticia Perez accused colleague Jeff Flores of cowardice during a debate over whether the county should help pay for transportation for ICE detainees released in downtown Bakersfield. The fight erupted as the board weighed two competing ways to fund the effort, including tapping $50,000 set aside for homelessness prevention, but ultimately took no final action on spending the money.
The tense back-and-forth capped weeks of growing concern from community organizers, who had told county officials that releases of immigrant detainees from federal detention facilities in Kern County had increased in recent months, according to KGET 17 News. Perez had asked staff earlier in October to return with options for how the county could support that work, and staff came back Tuesday with two proposals. One option would use the entire $50,000 from the county’s Homeless Housing Assistance Program Round 6 Prevention and Diversion category; the other would shift the funding source to the county’s General Fund.
Perez argued the federal government was effectively releasing detainees into homelessness in Bakersfield and said she believes the county has a responsibility to help them return home. Flores pushed back hard, questioning how the county could know that released detainees were actually becoming homeless, saying he hadn’t seen evidence proving it. He also questioned whether taxpayers should foot transportation costs tied to an immigration matter when county homelessness services already existed. The exchange escalated until Perez told him directly, “You’re a coward, Jeff.”
Two Funding Paths, No Final Decision
County officials noted the Homeless Housing Assistance Program Round 6 money is currently assigned to outreach work in Oildale aimed at moving people into temporary or permanent housing, meaning the detainee-transportation option would redirect existing dollars rather than add new ones. The board’s own agenda for the item listed it only for discussion and direction, specifying no fiscal impact, rather than describing an approved expenditure. After the argument cooled, the Board unanimously approved asking staff to return with more information on how any money would be spent, what the city of Bakersfield might do, possible grant opportunities, and related details.
Flores offered an alternative during the meeting, pointing to Homeward Bound, an existing county-funded program that helps people reunite with family in other states or cities, as a possible vehicle for supporting the detainees instead of creating a new funding stream. County officials also said during the discussion that ICE is not legally required to help detainees with transportation upon release, and noted that release conditions require detainees to return to and check in at a supervision office in their community by a deadline, per the same KGET account.
A Notable Conflict Over the Law
That account of federal obligations is not the whole picture. A detention-services standards document posted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement states that a detainee “shall be released from custody with appropriate transportation assistance,” an apparent conflict with county officials’ characterization that has not been resolved by available evidence.
The scale of releases in Kern County helps explain why the issue landed before the board at all. The county is home to four ICE detention facilities, the highest concentration of any county in California, according to KVPR. People released from the California City Detention Facility and the Mesa Verde ICE Processing Center are received at the Bakersfield ICE field office on Truxtun Avenue, and newly released detainees processed there commonly end up at the nearby Bakersfield Amtrak and Greyhound station, according to KQED. ICE data shows more than 2,500 detainees have come through Kern County so far this year, with average detention stays ranging from 25 to 69 days, the same KVPR report found.
Volunteers Have Been Filling the Gap
County staff said community organizations and volunteers have been helping an average of 35 detainees per month return to their communities since January, according to the KGET report. Costs for groups such as Faith in the Valley, including flights and hotel stays, reportedly ran around $73,000 from June through August. Elsewhere in the Central Valley, the Valley Watch Network said it has helped immigrants from 29 different states return home after release, as reported by the Sacramento Bee, which also noted that some detainees have been released in Central Valley cities late at night with their phones uncharged. KVPR’s Central Valley Daily podcast reported that as immigration operations increase the number of detainees filling detention centers, the number of people being released is also growing.
County leaders have also reached beyond Bakersfield for help. Kern County alerted the office of Rep. Vince Fong about the issue, and his office reportedly told the county it would connect directly with the Department of Homeland Security to learn more details, per the KGET report. Separately, advocates including the ACLU and the Kern County Criminal Justice Coalition have pushed the county to shift budget priorities toward public health and community services and to increase oversight of conditions at immigration detention facilities, according to Turn to 23.
What Comes Next
The board’s Oct. 13 referral had already asked staff to identify funding options, federal advocacy steps and more data on the number and costs of transfers, according to CitizenPortal.ai. With Tuesday’s unanimous vote for more information, the question of whether the county will spend public money on bus tickets and flights for released ICE detainees remains unresolved, and it is expected to come back before the board once staff gathers additional details.
