LA Councilmember McOsker seeks to prohibit private detention centers in city

The Los Angeles City Council approved a motion on Wednesday, Feb. 11, to restart the process to potentially ban the development of private detention centers for unaccompanied minors citywide.

Councilmember Tim McOsker reintroduced the motion, about six years after the City Council initially discussed it. The precautionary move was, in part, a proactive step to guard against detention centers that are going up to house immigration detainees.

It comes as warehouses and other local facilities are being eyed by the Trump administration for conversion into buildings repurposed to hold U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees, according to news reports. Specifically, McOsker has had his eye on what could happen to the Terminal Island Federal Prison, which is slated to close because of costly construction repairs that are needed. That prison is in San Pedro, which is part of McOsker’s 15th Council District.

Federal immigration officials, according to a Feb. 3 Associated Press report, are scouting warehouses and other facilities, and beginning to purchase some of them to transform into detention and processing facilities.

An earlier 2019 effort to ban private detentions centers for unaccompanied minors in Los Angeles, McOsker said, was not ultimately passed as of 2021 “because the Trump administration moved on and a new administration came in.”

“Fast forward to today — I don’t have any notice or belief or heads up that any private detainee centers for L.A. are being proposed,” McOsker said in a Tuesday, Feb. 10, phone interview. “But I see that warehouses are being acquired across the state (not in L.A., he added) and (with the aim of) being rehabbed for detention centers. I just want to be ready so I wanted to reactivate the file.”

Specifically, the action on Wednesday reactivates a city file and draft ordinance that was nearly complete during the first Trump administration term, restoring it to its most recent legislative status and restarting the final steps needed to codify the ban into the Los Angeles Municipal Code.

“This motion is about being prepared, not reactive,” McOsker said in a written statement. “The City of Los Angeles came very close in 2021 to formally prohibiting private detention centers, but that work was left unfinished.

“I want to make sure Los Angeles is clear about where we stand. I have no indication that a private detention facility is being proposed here today, but with the state of our nation as it stands, it would be irresponsible not to complete this work,” he added. “Reactivating this file and adopting the ordinance will allow us to define these uses in our Municipal Code and prevent private detention facilities from taking hold in our communities before there is a proposal on the table.”

Jin Choi, spokesperson for U.S. Rep. Nanette Barragan, D-San Pedro, said the congresswoman has been reaching out in an effort to schedule a personal tour of the Terminal Island prison to better determine its status and what repairs would be needed.

The congressional office, Choi said, receives a number of calls from constituents concerned about ICE activities in the area. As of late 2025, Choi said, there were roughly 1,000 inmates at Terminal Island. Inmates are currently being moved out, with around 700 remaining.

The cost of the repairs, she said — citing a report by the Office of the Inspector General in 2022, along with an outside study — would stand at more than $110 million over the next 20 years.

A Wednesday press release from McOsker’s office, meanwhile, pointed to a Washington Post article that reported last month that the Trump administration had moved recently to acquire industrial buildings in at least eight states.

One high-profile example of the national detention build-out, McOsker’s release said, is the facility in the Florida Everglades informally known as “Alligator Alcatraz,” a remote migrant detention center that opened in mid-2025 at a converted airstrip.

In July 2021, the Los Angeles City Attorney had submitted a final report and draft ordinance to amend the Municipal Code to formally prohibit private detention centers and community detention facilities for unaccompanied minors in the city of Los Angeles. That report was referred to the Planning and Land Use Management Committee, where the file expired.

The revived ordinance builds on recommendations adopted by the Planning and Land Use Management Committee in April 2021 and an expanded definition approved by the Planning Commission in December 2020. The definition of “private detention center” includes any privately or non-governmentally operated facility where individuals are incarcerated or otherwise involuntarily confined, including facilities used to house people in federal custody, with limited statutory exceptions, McOsker’s office said in the press release.

McOsker emphasized the need to update the legal research and complete the work and to “be prepared.” The 15th City Council District McOsker represents — from Watts to San Pedro — has several large warehouses and industrial sites, in addition to the prison.

Before any proposals for private detention facilities are submitted, McOsker said, the city needs to assert its land use authority and prohibit uses that are contrary to local public policy.

“I don’t want to be alarmist,” McOsker said in introducing his motion, which passed unanimously.

But, he added, many of his constituents have expressed concerns about “private detention centers and don’t want to be part of unconstitutional actions or human rights violations.”