ADELANT, Calif. — As federal immigration agents engage in mass raids across Southern California, the Adelanto Ice Processing Center is filling up very quickly, rekinking years of concern about safety conditions within the facility.
Less than two months later, the number of detainees in the vast complex about 85 miles northeast of Los Angeles had skyrocketed from about 300 near the end of April to more than 1,200 as of Wednesday, according to the American Civil Liberties Union in Southern California.
Adelanto, California’s largest detention center, has been the focus of complaints about inadequate medical care, overly restrictive separation and loose mental health services from detainees, lawyers, and state and federal inspectors.
But now, critics (internal staff) warn that internal conditions are becoming increasingly safe and uneasy. They say the facility is not ready to handle a significant increase in the number of detainees.
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“That’s dangerous,” a longtime Adelanto Detention Center staff member told The Times, discussing it on condition of anonymity, and not wanting to lose his job. “We have the staff and not enough experienced staff for this. They’re just cutting too many corners, affecting the safety of everyone there.”
On Tuesday, US Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park) toured Adelanto with four other Democrats in Congress from California amid growing concern over the rapid number of detainees in the facility and the worsening situation.
The facility’s manager said “there is a clear need to be improved in the treatment of these detainees,” Chu said at a press conference after nearly two hours of inspection of the facility.
Some detainees told lawmakers they were being held inside Adelanto for 10 days without changing clothes, underwear and towels, Chu said. Others said they were denied access to the phone to talk to their loved ones or lawyers, even after filling out the form repeatedly.
“I was really shocked to hear they couldn’t change their underwear. They couldn’t get socks for 10 days,” Chu told The Times. “They can’t get a phone pin number. What about their legal rights? What about their ability to contact their family? It’s inhumane.”
Immigration Customs and Enforcement and GEO Group, a Florida-based private prison company that manages the Adelanto Detention Center, did not answer Times questions about staffing or conditions within the facility. The Times also sent questions to official duties Tricia McLaughlin’s Homeland Security Secretary, who they couldn’t answer.
Third from the left, Lucero Garcia gave an emotional account of her uncle who was taken from his job in an Orange County car wash. She and others were outside the Adelanto Ice Processing Center on Tuesday.
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
Over the past two weeks, new detainees have been forced to sleep on common areas floors without blankets or pillows, and have spent days at the facility before clean clothes and underwear were provided, according to interviews with current detention centre staff, immigration officers and council members who toured the facility. Some detainees complain about lack of access to medication, lack of access to four-hour drinking water, and being served dinner until 10pm
Jennifer Norris, a staff attorney at the Immigration Defenderslow Center, said his hypertension medication was not permitted when the family tried to bring it in. In some cases, LAX medical care has led to emergencies, she said. A Vietnamese man passed away last week after failing to provide him with the medicine he needed.
“By strengthening enforcement, it is clear that Adelanto does not have staff to respond to the aggressive enforcement that is happening now,” Norris said. “That’s odd. We spend millions of dollars on ice detention and they can’t even provide basic necessities for new arrivals.”
Long before the Trump administration was announced in May, Adelanto workers were worried about the shortages and dangerous situation as the center handled new detainees as they had set a new national goal of arresting 3,000 fraudulent immigrants a day.
At the end of last year, the facility only had three people open. As of Wednesday, that number had swelled to 1,218, according to the ACLU in Southern California.
The climb comes from a recent escalation of immigrant raids by ice agents.
The 1,940-bed Adelanto facility operates at a dramatically reduced capacity since 2020, when civil rights groups filed a class action lawsuit, demanding that civil rights groups dramatically reduce the number of people detained in Adelanto in the face of serious risks of contracting for COVID-19. A federal judge forced the detainees to be released at the detention center and banned new intakes and transfers.
But this year’s federal court orders – the latest order in early June, allowed facilities to reopen completely, just as federal immigrant agents incite their neighborhoods and workplaces.
“As soon as the judge lifted the order, they just started slamming people there,” an Adelanto staff member told The Times.
Eva Vitlan, director of immigration rights at the ACLU in Southern California, said “almost everyone” held at the Adelanto facility had no criminal history before they arrived at the detention center.
“But, even if they have a criminal history, even if they spend time in criminal custody and then brought to an ice facility, no one deserves 10 days in the same underwear,” Vitlan said. “No one deserves a dirty shower and no one deserves a moldy food.”
Adelanto Ice Processing Center.
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
Mario Romero, an indigenous worker from Mexico, was taken into custody on June 6 in an inviting apparel warehouse in downtown Los Angeles, and was among dozens who ended up in Adelanto.
His daughter, Yurien Contreras, said her father “has been chained up from his feet, feet and hips, taken to the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown, and was “hospitalized” in a van between 11pm and 7am, before not being accessed by water, food or toilets.
“We knew little,” she said.
In Adelanto, officials are trying to force her father to sign documents without legitimate procedures or legal representation, she said. Medical care is “less than minimal,” she said, the food was unsustainable and the water tasted like Clorox.
Yurien Contreras’ father was taken from work to an ICE agent at Aviance Apparel in Los Angeles.
(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)
Lucero Garcia told the Times, who is worried about her 61-year-old uncle, Canzid, that she was worried about Canzid, who was taken into custody on June 9 while working at Magnolia Car Wash in Fountain Valley.
But when she visited him on Saturday, she said, “He didn’t want to share much.” “He’s more worried about us.”
This is not the first time the Adelant Detention Center has faced scrutiny.
In 2018, federal inspectors issued a report finding “serious violations” at the facility. This includes separating detainees who are overly restricted and security guards who cannot stop detainees from hanging “noose” on braided bed sheets.
Five years later, current and former Adelanto detainees filed a class action lawsuit against the GEO Group, claiming “systemically poisonous” prisoners by improperly using toxic chemicals to clean detention centers. Geo Group has rejected a class action lawsuit.
In April, the California Department of Justice published a report finding that all six individually run immigration detention facilities in the state, including Adelanto, lack in providing mental health care for the use of force against detainees, medical record keeping, suicide prevention strategies, and detainees in mental health conditions.
However, two staff members who spoke with the Times said they have never experienced such a dangerous situation in Adelanto.
With the prison population growing over the past few months, staff have been working long hours without breaks, some have moved and driven home after a car accident and fall asleep. Shift workers with no experience in security were asked to make a late-night decision on whether to place detainees who felt threatened by protective detention. Officials, including food service people, had been sent to hospitals to check for detainees with tuberculosis and hepatitis.
“Everyone is overwhelmed,” the staff said.
Officers working on assigned schedules were often tired during work, another staff member said.
In May, detainees fell into anaphylactic shock and were intubated at the hospital, staff said it was because officers were not paying attention and that they allergiced to seafood, a tray containing tuna.
At a meeting in May, the watchman told all executive staff they needed to come to work dressed Tuesday and Thursday, staff said.
On June 2, detainees at the Annex facility have not been bored since they returned to their dorms, through four closed doors from the medical holding area, staff said.
“If he wanted to get away, he would be gone,” the staff said. “All he did was press a button and access the door, it was open for him. No questions asked.
The detention centre was unsanitary, staff said the trash cans were not immediately empty, the bathroom was not cleaned, and the floors were not clogged so that they weren’t wiped.
Officials said the facility was confusing and there was a shortage of basic supplies as a new wave of detainees flooded the facility over the past two weeks.
“It wasn’t enough to offer it right away,” they said.
Mark Ferretis, who worked as a chef director at Adelanto for 14 years at Adelanto, said his former colleagues said the executives have worked multiple 16-20-hour shifts for several consecutive days without breaks.
“It took them five years to prepare,” Feletis, who served as the union steward, said of his former supervisor. “I don’t know why they weren’t ready.”
The shortages appeared to facilitate some recent days, but by Tuesday when council members toured, the detention centre was still understaffed, the current staff said.
Detainees were served food in boxes with paper shells rather than regular trays, due to the lack of employees to be washed away at the end of the meal, staff said.
“The garbage pickup wasn’t coming quickly enough,” the staff said.
In a statement last week, George C. Zoley, executive chairman of Geo Group, said that opening the Adelanto facility in full could allow his company to generate an additional $31 million annual revenue.
“We are proud of the approximately 350 employees at the Adelanto Center. Our dedication and professionalism have enabled GEO to establish a long-standing record of providing high-quality support services on behalf of ICE in California,” Zoley says.
However, after touring the facility, council members said officials were not providing answers to basic questions.
When Chu asked officials about whether California immigrants were being taken to other states, they said, “We don’t know.”
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