New Lancaster jail: Plans for new women's detention center may not move forward

LANCASTER, Calif. (KABC) -- Los Angeles County's plan to retrofit an immigration detention center as a women's jail in Lancaster may not happen after all.

Opponents said the facility is too far from the families of the women who would be housed there.

Supervisor Sheila Kuehl issued a statement Monday after asking that a planned vote on the Mira Loma Detention Center be postponed two weeks.

"The location of the proposed women's jail at Mira Loma poses significant, and in my opinion, insurmountable obstacles to our goal of creating a women's jail that is the centerpiece of a gender-responsive corrections system,'' Kuehl wrote. "Mira Loma is too far away from the home communities of the women who would be housed there, and too far away from family members who would need to visit.''

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is meeting to discuss it Tuesday, though a vote on the project's future may be pushed back.

JusticeLA and other criminal justice advocate groups plan to be outside the meeting to rally against the plan.

City News Service contributed to this report.