Immigration detainees suffer from mold on the walls, infectious diseases, a lack of medical care and a lack of clean water and food at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in San Bernardino County, a lawsuit filed Monday against federal officials said.
Two people detained at the facility have died since October, and lawyers and immigrant rights groups who filed the lawsuit say conditions at the facility have worsened as the Trump administration continues its efforts to detain and deport thousands of immigrants.
The conditions are “designed to get people to drop their legal cases,” said Alvaro M. Huerta, director of litigation and advocacy at the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, a nonprofit that provides legal services to immigrants and one of the groups suing federal agencies. “It’s a system designed to break people down.”
The complaint alleges that “the government’s abuse of Adelanto is part of its broader program of harassing, intimidating, punishing and deporting immigrants.”
In the past year, the population at the center has increased from three people to nearly 2,000, leading to overcrowding and worsening conditions, according to the complaint. The number of immigrants detained nationwide passed a record high of 65,000 in November, according to TRAC, a nonpartisan research organization. At least 73% of those arrested at the time had no criminal records, the agency reported.
The lawsuit was filed by attorneys for the Public Counsel, a nonprofit organization focused on civil rights and racial and economic issues, and the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, or CHIRLA.
The lawsuit seeks to require federal agencies to comply with their incarceration standards, and conditions for the agency to declare violations of inmates’ 5th amendment rights.
Officials from the Department of Homeland Security and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, named as defendants, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. He also did not speak for Geo Group, a private company not named in the suit that owns and operates the facility as a federal government contractor.
Adelanto has faced complaints about the conditions and treatment of inmates for years. The staff of this center once told The Times newspaper that the center was not ready and had a small number of staff due to the operation that they are still starting to see under the current immigration policies.
The lawsuit filed Monday is the second to allege brutal conditions at a California immigration detention center.
In November, seven inmates at the California City Detention Facility in the Mojave Desert alleged in a federal class action lawsuit that they were subjected to cruel conditions, including medical negligence and substandard living conditions. In December, attorneys filed an emergency motion asking a federal judge to order ICE to provide life-saving medical care to the two plaintiffs at the facility, which is operated by the private company CoreCivic. ICE agreed to provide medical assistance to the men.
More than a dozen people died last year in ICE custody across the country, including Ismael Ayala-Uribe, 39, who died one month after being caught on the job at Fountain Valley Auto Wash, where he had worked for 15 years.
Gabriel Garcia-Aviles, 56, who was showing signs of alcohol withdrawal when he was arrested on Oct. 15, was briefly detained in Adelanto before being taken to Victor Valley Global Medical Center in Victorville, where he died.
The relatives of the deceased said they were kept in the dark about the health condition of their loved ones, and the lack of medical assistance.
“We didn’t know anything about his condition except that he was sick, and he wasn’t getting help,” said Jose Ayala, Ayala-Uribe’s brother, in a press conference on Monday. “This is something that should never happen to anyone.”
Mario, who declined to give his last name, said he was arrested by immigration officials after 33 years in the US and held in Adelanto for two months before posting $10,000 bail and submitting to electronic monitoring.
While inside, he said, he was only fed small burritos and was not given soap to wash his hands, inmates are forced to clean the bathrooms.
“Prison,” he said.
In the building where he lived along with about 200 others, people fell ill with cough and fever but did not receive medical help, he said.
“They didn’t care if we had a cough or a fever,” he said.
Rebecca Brown, an attorney in charge of the Public Counsel, called the conditions at the private facility atrocious.
“This is not about public safety, it’s about profit,” he said. “It is degrading and illegal.”
