Detainees at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in Adelanto have filed a federal lawsuit challenging what they call the facility’s inhumane conditions.
The lawsuit, made public on Jan. 26, seeks to expose a detention system the plaintiffs allege is cruel, inhumane and degrading, and that forces people to live in unsanitary conditions subject to punitive isolation and neglect, the Immigrant Defenders Law Center said in a written statement.
The litigation specifically challenges alleged denial of basic necessities at the privately operated facility — including medical and mental health care, access to the outdoors and adequate nutrition and water — and seeks to end “excessive use of solitary confinement,” according to the organization.
The lawsuit was filed on behalf of detainees by Public Counsel, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, Immigrant Defenders Law Center and Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP.
Two people men being held at the detention center have died in recent months.
Ismael Ayala-Uribe, a 39-year-old DACA recipient, died Sept. 22, 2025, in ICE custody at Adelanto. A month later, on Oct. 23, 2025, 56-year-old Gabriel Garcia-Aviles died after being detained at Adelanto for about a week. Both deaths remain under investigation.
The plaintiffs state that being detained for a civil infraction should never result in serious illness or death.
“The Constitution does not allow the government to cage people in conditions that cause serious injury, worsening illness and lasting trauma,” Public Counsel Supervising Attorney Rebecca Brown said.
“This lawsuit demands accountability and immediate action to ensure that every person detained at Adelanto receives the humane treatment they deserve under our Constitution,” Brown added. “No one, regardless of immigration status, should be subjected to these conditions.”
Director of litigation and advocacy at Immigrant Defenders Law Center, Alvaro M. Huerta, said squalid conditions and denial of proper medical care are pressure tactics ICE is using to coerce “voluntary” departure, and that the lawsuit holds them fully accountable “for every preventable illness, every avoidable death and every unconstitutional injustice these conditions bring about.”
Current detainees seek class action lawsuit from behind barbed wire
Four of the individual plaintiffs are current detainees at the Adelanto facility, two of whom are identified only by initials. Information on the plaintiffs was obtained from the litigation report.
L.T.
L.T. is a resident of Santa Ana. Born in 1964, L.T. has lived in California since 1989. He was arrested by ICE on Nov. 14, 2025, in Santa Ana and has been at the Adelanto facility since Nov. 18, 2025.
L.T. has high blood pressure and diabetes and needs numerous medications each day, which he often receives at the wrong times. He also suffers from serious speech and mobility issues due to a stroke he had three years ago, which continue to go unaddressed and untreated at Adelanto. He reports that there is no help for people like him inside Adelanto, and that he is often handcuffed or with chains around his ankles during appointments, restricting his need for a cane.
Additionally, L.T. suffers from sleep apnea, a serious sleep disorder that limits oxygen to the brain while asleep. L.T. requested a sleep apnea machine when he initially arrived at Adelanto, but was denied.
Sevak Mesrobian
Mesrobian is a resident of Glendale, who came to the United States in approximately 1990 and was arrested this summer by ICE in Glendale while running errands for his mother. He was taken to Adelanto on July 24, 2025, where he remains.
He suffers from epilepsy and seizures for which he requires prescription medication. Adelanto staff do not consistently provide the medication Mesrobian needs to control his seizures.
Inexperienced staff repeatedly order Mesrobian to walk after suffering a seizure, and on multiple occasions, he has fallen and hit his head. Recently, while hospitalized and in critical condition due to a seizure, Mesrobian had his arm and leg handcuffed to the bed for five days.
Jose Mauro Salazar Garza
Salazar Garza is a California resident who has lived in the United States since 1981. He has six children in the United States, the youngest of whom is 11. Salazar Garza has been detained at Adelanto for about one year, and he serves as the Christian preacher in his unit.
He was detained at Desert View Annex in July 2023, and in August 2024, another detainee bit off part of his right pinky finger.
When he was transferred to Adelanto months later, his hand was so swollen and painful that he found it difficult to tie his shoes and brush his teeth. For months, medical staff at Adelanto did not address what turned out to be a severe infection, and while Salazar Garza was sleeping one night, the end of his finger burst, expelling black pus.
It was days before medical staff provided antibiotics, and even longer before he was transported to the local hospital for treatment. Salazar Garza still experiences pain in his hand and forearm, and he fears repeat infections.
He has lost 11 pounds in confinement.
J.M.
J.M. is a resident of Moreno Valley who has lived in the United States since 2005. He has been detained since March 2025.
He suffers from cardiac arrhythmia, and after an off-site cardiologist recommended he wear a monitor for his heart, staff at Adelanto required him to stay in medical solitary confinement if he wanted to use it. After about five days alone, he could no longer stand the isolation and asked return to his cell without his heart monitor.
J.M. constantly fears that if he suffers a cardiac episode, he will not receive timely medical assistance, if he receives any at all. J.M. has lost approximately fifteen pounds since entering detention.
Adelanto conditions have long been scrutinized
The Adelanto facility, formerly a state prison that is now owned by one of the largest for-profit prison companies in the U.S., GEO Group, was visited by California Reps. Judy Chu, Linda Sánchez, Mark Takano, Sydney Kamlager-Dove and Luz Rivas in June 2025 as part of their “lawful duty” after the Los Angeles immigration raids, which increased the Adelanto facilities intake count from three to 1,200 beds occupied overnight.
The conditions the California representatives say they found on June 17 echo the findings of a 2018 Department of Homeland Security report, which revealed that the conditions inside the Adelanto facility were a “violation of federal standards,” the most concerning of which were reported nooses in detainee cells, improper and overly restrictive segregation and inadequate detainee medical care.
That same year, Disability Rights California toured Adelanto and, after multiday inspections, issued a 64-page report detailing conditions of abuse for people with disabilities and mental health issues.
Congressmember Linda Sánchez said the conditions at the Adelanto compound were so horrible in the initial report that the federal courts “essentially said to shut it down.”
Chu reported that not much has improved following her 2025 visit, when she spoke to some of the detainees in their eight-person cells, many of whom were picked up in the Los Angeles raids days before her visit.
The people Chu spoke to last June revealed in a plea for help that they had not been given a change of clothes, underwear or towels in the 10 days they had been at the Adelanto compound.
According to one of the detainees Sánchez spoke to, they were taken into custody in the morning and were not fed until 9 p.m. that night at the Adelanto facility.
Additionally, inmates were not given PINs for outgoing calls and had no connection to the outside world, including lawyers, for more than a week.
According to the recent lawsuit, the facility’s surge in population following the Los Angeles raids reflects a pattern where oversight is practically non-existent, and resources are exhausted.
Included in the litigation report is a statement from a longtime Adelanto ICE Processing Facility staff member warning that the population surge was “dangerous” as there was “no staffing for this,” “not enough experienced staff,” that the facility was “cutting way too many corners,” and that the short staffing “affects the safety of everybody in there.”
Despite opposition from lawmakers like district representative Jay Obernolte, who claim detainees are treated as humanely as possible, plaintiffs state this lawsuit clearly demonstrates otherwise.
High Desert immigration detention operations
Since 2011, Adelanto has functioned as the primary long-term immigration detention center in the Central District. It has the capacity to detain 1,940 people, making it the largest immigration detention facility in the district and one of the largest in the country.
According to the latest public information available, there were 1,786 people detained at the Adelanto center as of November 2025.
The lawsuit reports that GEO makes an estimated $85 million annually for its Adelanto contract with ICE and expects to profit an additional $31 million annually with the detention center open at full capacity. They are guaranteed payment for a minimum of 640 beds.
Lawsuit appellants state the facility exemplifies a system where human confinement is monetized and the incentive is to keep people detained rather than safe.
McKenna is a reporter for the Daily Press. She can be reached at mmobley@usatodayco.com.
This article originally appeared on Victorville Daily Press: Detainees sue Adelanto ICE facility, alleging inhumane conditions
Reporting by McKenna Mobley, Victorville Daily Press / Victorville Daily Press
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