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A bill authorizing the California Department of Public Health to inspect residential detention facilities was halted in an Assembly hearing Thursday.
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Senate Bill 995, known as the Masuma Khan Justice Act, would create a uniform statewide system to regulate heating, ventilation, air, water and electrical systems in detention centers. It would also mandate adherence to occupational safety and health regulations in an effort to address reported deficiencies in access to mental health and medical care.
The measure is named after Masuma Khan, a 65-year-old resident of Altadena, California. During an April hearing in the Senate Standing Committee on Health, bill author state Sen. Sasha Pérez, D-Alhambra, said Khan was held for over a month in a cold facility without access to warm clothing, edible food, clean drinking water or the medications she needed.
“SB 995 is grounded in a simple principle,” Pérez said. “If detention facilities operate in California, they must meet California’s standards for safety, dignity and human rights.”
Khan has lived in the U.S. since 1997 with her daughter and husband, both American citizens. Though she has no criminal record, Khan was detained at California City Detention Center after a routine immigration check-in in downtown Los Angeles. During a month in detention, Khan was denied access to necessary medications for hypothyroidism, high blood pressure and glaucoma, according to testimony by her daughter, Riya Khan.
“When I visited her one day, she was having shortness of breath, she couldn’t walk, her legs were so swollen and painful that they were bruising up and she was shaking,” Khan said in an interview with The Sacramento Bee. “That scared me because I was afraid my mom was going to die in that place when she’s done nothing wrong.”
Riya Khan said those held in the facility were served moldy, insect-infested bread, drank dirty water and lived in below-freezing conditions. The LED floodlights outside the center are left on all night, she said, and guards slam doors at all hours, keeping detainees awake.
“This is unacceptable and disgusting,” Riya Khan said. “We have people dying at a record rate … There is a complete and utter disregard for human lives at this point. And this can be prevented by having certain rules and regulations in place.”
After seeing the conditions in which her mother was held, Khan said she “reached out to anyone and everyone” — news organizations, social media creators and legislators like Pérez. According to Pérez, she pledged to author the bill last fall after hearing what Masuma Khan went through.
“Masuma looked at me at one point and said, ‘If these facilities are located in California and you’re a California state senator, why would you not be able to … do something about this?’” Pérez said in an interview with The Bee. “I felt like the point she made in that moment was very accurate. Why should we not be able to do anything? Why haven’t we done more?”
Pushback over redundancy
While the bill received unanimous support in Senate votes and during committee hearings in both chambers, some said its provisions may have been duplicative of existing law.
“We have concerns with some of the provisions in the bill that we believe would create … duplicative oversight for health facilities that are already licensed and regulated under some of the most stringent regulations in the nation,” said Leah Barros on behalf of the California Hospital Association.
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Barros said there were worries that permitting state-run health inspections on federally overseen detention facilities may invite legal challenges. Additionally, the bill would group private detention facilities with licensed behavioral health facilities already governed by strict state operating guidelines.
“While SB 995 addresses a serious issue, its significant costs and lengthy implementation timeline raised concerns about whether the proposal, as written, would translate into timely, meaningful protections for the people it was intended to help,” Wicks said in a written statement to The Bee.
Some were opposed to the inclusion of county juvenile facilities in the definition of “involuntary residential facility” in the bill. At an Assembly Health Committee hearing in June, Chief Probation Officers of California Legislative Director Danielle Sanchez said these facilities are already subjected to judicious inspection and would not benefit from additional oversight.
“Because there’s an existing framework, adding duplication and layering a new one … actually does more harm than good in carrying out the state framework that has been established,” Sanchez said in testimony.
Pérez maintained that the state has the authority to implement the legislation outlined in the bill. She referenced a bill passed in 2024 that would allow county-level health inspections of detention facilities. Though the bill’s language is similar to SB 995, it is limited by county-specific politics, according to Pérez.
“[The 2024] bill was very powerful and innovative,” Pérez said. “But I don’t think we considered what would happen if a privately run immigration detention facility needed to be investigated and the county itself, the board of supervisors, did not want to initiate the investigation. And that’s what’s happened.”
According to Pérez, California City Detention Center is located in a conservative area whose county officials refused to initiate an investigation into the facility’s conditions. This made it difficult, she said, to hold elected officials accountable for Masuma Khan’s treatment while there.
“This is part of the reason why I believe, and will continue to argue, that the state needs to take over that oversight and accountability framework,” Pérez said. “This is a statewide issue, it is a national issue, and we can no longer just rely on these county agencies.”
The bill was halted by the Assembly Appropriations Committee along with dozens of other measures.
“I’m so heartbroken,” Pérez said. “We are moving past a moment where this is a partisan issue, and I think people are beginning to realize that these are human rights abuses that we need to take action around. I really hope there will be reconsideration here … I cannot think of a more urgent issue than this one.”
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