Peña López Family Sues US, ICE, GEO Group, and CoreCivic Over Alleged Beating and Disability-Rights Violations at Two Kern County ICE Facilities
Opening paragraph
On July 6, 2026, Ulises Peña Lopez, his wife Aby Pena, and their minor daughter (identified in court filings only as “E.P.,” a dignity-preserving anonymization the court itself used) filed a federal civil complaint — Pena-Lopez v. United States of America, No. 5:26-cv-06864 (N.D. Cal.) — against the United States, the Department of Homeland Security, ICE, The GEO Group, Inc., and Corecivic, Inc. The suit arises from Peña Lopez’s February 2025 arrest by ICE officers outside his Sunnyvale, California apartment and his subsequent eight months in ICE detention before his October 2025 deportation to Mexico. He is a U.S. citizen’s spouse and was, per his attorneys, undocumented at the time of arrest; the complaint does not contest his removal.
What Happened / Key Facts
The arrest (Feb. 2025, Sunnyvale, CA): Per the complaint, masked ICE officers in tactical gear surrounded Peña Lopez’s truck outside his home. An officer struck the driver’s-side window with a baton, cracking it. When he stepped out, officers allegedly forced him to the ground, then “jerked [him] up off of the ground and rammed him against the car while beating him with closed fists, striking multiple blows to his ribs and neck,” with a gun placed to his head at one point. His U.S.-citizen wife watched from a stairwell; his daughter, “E.P.,” watched from a second-story window and “was sobbing,” per the complaint. Peña Lopez lost consciousness twice; an ICE officer performed CPR before paramedics transported him to El Camino Hospital in Mountain View.
Custody at two Kern County facilities: The complaint alleges GEO Group failed to conduct an adequate health and disability screening at intake, then held Peña Lopez in freezing temperatures with lights kept on overnight and no phone or outdoor access, at Golden State Annex (McFarland, Kern County — a former state prison GEO Group owns and operates directly, confirmed via GEO’s FY2025 10-K property schedule: 700 beds, ICE contract since December 2019). Detention staff there allegedly told him “motherfucker, you don’t get to be asleep” and “you’re never gonna walk again.” In late August 2025 he was transferred to California City Detention Facility (also Kern County — at the time owned and operated by CoreCivic, Inc.; the underlying real estate was sold to DHS on July 2, 2026, four days before this suit was filed, though CoreCivic continues operating under contract through August 2027). The complaint alleges a month without daily medication, denial of a prescribed “heart healthy” diet, and inadequate medical care that worsened his condition before deportation.
Pre-existing disability: Peña Lopez, a carpenter, had a documented August 2024 mini-stroke diagnosis, managed before detention. Post-arrest and post-detention, the complaint alleges new and worsening symptoms: headaches, right-side weakness/numbness, eye pain, hearing loss, insomnia, nightmares, blurry vision, back pain, and difficulty walking, leaving him unable to work.
Claims pleaded: Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. § 794 (per CourtListener’s “Cause” field: “28:794 Rehabilitation Act”; nature-of-suit code 440, Civil Rights: Other), and — per the Mercury News’ direct reading of the complaint — a Fifth Amendment due-process claim, seeking a declaratory judgment that conditions at both facilities were unconstitutional. This is a filed complaint, not a ruling. No answer, motion to dismiss, or merits ruling had been docketed as of this research pass (Aug. 28, 2026); the only subsequent docket entries found are a notice of appearance (July 6) and a magistrate-judge consent/declination filing (July 10).
Named plaintiffs’ counsel span four firms: Struck Love Acedo, PLC; Edlin Gallagher Huie & Blum; Pangea Legal Services; and Disability Law United. Lead filing attorney: Cynthia Louise Rice; also appearing: Elena Hodges (Pangea Legal Services co-director), Fred M. Blum, Dana M. Keene, Michael J. Starrett, Laura Murchie.
Both companies’ responses (via Mother Jones and Mercury News): A CoreCivic spokesperson said the company does not generally comment on active litigation but that “the safety, health, and well-being of the people in our facilities is our top priority”; CoreCivic spokesman Ryan Gustin separately said detainees have “daily access to sign up for medical care” and receive “three nutritious meals a day.” GEO Group did not respond to requests for comment. A DHS/ICE spokesperson called Peña Lopez, 31, a “criminal illegal alien from Mexico with prior arrests,” said he “initially did not comply with officers’ repeated instructions,” and that “any claims of subprime medical care at ICE facilities are FALSE.” Santa Clara County Superior Court records confirm Peña Lopez was convicted in 2020 of misdemeanor assault involving his then-girlfriend/now-wife (2019, Palo Alto) — one year of a domestic-violence program, three years’ probation, $3,740 restitution. Attorney Hodges: “ICE’s attempt to focus on Ulises’s criminal history shouldn’t be allowed to distract from what this case is actually about.”
Why This Event Matters
This is a four-actor defendant list naming both major detention contractors in a single suit — a comparatively rare pleading structure that puts GEO Group’s and CoreCivic’s institutional liability on the same docket, over sequential custody of the same plaintiff at two facilities 15 miles apart in the same county. It also lands in the same one-week window (July 6–10, 2026) as two other GEO Group/CoreCivic exposure events: a Cal/OSHA settlement with GEO Group over safety citations at the same McFarland facility complex (23ABC News Bakersfield, LA Times, CalMatters, Fresno Bee, all July 7–10, 2026 — see companion note) and a federal judge’s order compelling health-and-safety inspections at GEO’s Tacoma, WA Northwest ICE Processing Center (KUOW, July 10, 2026). That clustering is a documented, dated fact — not an inference about coordination — and is developed further in the companion research note.
Broader Context
California City Detention Facility already sits under a separate, active federal injunction regime: Gomez Ruiz v. ICE, No. 1:26-cv-02546 (E.D. Cal., transferred from N.D. Cal. 3:25-cv-09757), which won a February 2026 preliminary injunction and produced a July 30, 2026 court-monitor finding of “sustained” medical-care violations at that same facility (see 2026-07-30–federal-monitor-finds-corecivic-california-city-sustained-medical-failure). Gomez Ruiz already certified a disability subclass under the same statute (Rehabilitation Act §504) Peña Lopez now separately invokes — this is the second Section 504 action naming California City’s medical-care regime in 2026, not the first.
Research Gaps
- The complaint itself (Dkt. 1, PACER) has not been directly retrieved — CourtListener’s docket-entry viewer returned a failed/empty fetch for this docket (consistent with a JS-rendered entry table, not a confirmed absence); the case metadata (parties, cause, attorneys) was retrieved via CourtListener’s search-index API, which is reliable, but exact pleaded counts/paragraphs were not independently verified against the PDF.
- No answer or motion to dismiss from any defendant has surfaced as of Aug. 28, 2026 — worth a follow-up docket check in 60-90 days.
- Whether Disability Law United has filed comparable suits against other ICE facilities beyond this case was checked (CourtListener + news search) and found no other ICE-detention-specific Disability Law United filing in the current search window — see companion research note for the bounded verified-absence statement.
Related Entries
Sources & Citations
The Cascade Ledger. “Peña López Family Sues US, ICE, GEO Group, and CoreCivic Over Alleged Beating and Disability-Rights Violations at Two Kern County ICE Facilities.” The Capture Cascade Timeline, July 6, 2026. https://capturecascade.org/event/2026-07-06--pena-lopez-v-united-states-ada-rehabilitation-act-suit-geo-corecivic/