A group of Southern California members of Congress called on operators of a High Desert immigration detention center to improve conditions for the roughly 1,200 detainees being held within its walls after heightened enforcement efforts in the region.
“GEO clearly has to improve its treatment of these detainees,” Rep. Judy Chu, D-Pasadena, said during a news conference near the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, which she and four other members of Congress toured on Tuesday, June 17.
The GEO Group, which operates the detention facility on behalf of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, makes about $1 billion a year in federal contracts, Chu said. The group also donated more than $1 million to President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign.
“So we know what this is all about,” Chu said. “These detainees need to be treated with more humane conditions.”
ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday afternoon.
Chu and two other members of Congress had previously been turned away from touring the facility on June 8. Detainees had been brought there after raids in Paramount, Compton and other areas in Los Angeles County that weekend. Padlocks on the gates prevented the lawmakers’ entrance.
Under the 2024 Further Consolidated Appropriations Act, Department of Homeland Security funds cannot be used to prevent members of Congress “from entering, for the purpose of conducting oversight, any facility operated by or for the Department of Homeland Security used to detain or otherwise house aliens.” The statute also specifically says members of Congress aren’t required to give prior notice to DHS before an inspection.
On Friday, June 13, Rep. Pete Aguilar, D-San Bernardino, was able to tour the facility.
“It shouldn’t take multiple visits of members of Congress for us to be able to enter a facility to do what is our duty — to conduct oversight,” Rep. Luz Rivas, D-Pacoima, said outside the center Tuesday.
On Tuesday morning, Chu toured the Adelanto facility for about an hour and a half alongside Rivas and Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove, D-Los Angeles, Rep. Linda Sánchez, D-Whittier and Rep. Mark Takano, D-Riverside. The representatives and their staffs visited with detainees and inspected the kitchen, medical facilities and cells.
Chu said lawmakers spoke with one detainee who was not fed for 12 hours after he was taken into custody by law enforcement officers that he said did not identify themselves. Other detainees reportedly described being held in Adelanto without a change of clothes or towels for 10 days. Some said they were repeatedly denied access to the telephone to contact loved ones and legal representation, according to Chu.
“This is a billion-dollar industry,” said Takano. “They can get a change of clothes and more humane conditions for these detainees.”
Protesters have taken to the streets in communities across Southern California and beyond in response to federal immigration efforts in the Los Angeles area that started June 6 and were followed by Trump deploying the California National Guard — over the objections of Gov. Gavin Newsom — and the U.S. Marines to the city to support those efforts.
“I have a constituent who is deaf and mute. He was picked up by ICE and transported and we are still looking for him,” said Kamlager-Dove. “We have had laundromats, we have had churches we have had elementary schools, we have had small stores raided by FBI, Homeland Security in cooperation with ICE, snatching folks, not asking for identification, not providing identification for judicial warrants themselves.”
She said detainees are being sorted by race and ethnicity, which she called racial profiling.
Complaints about the Adelanto detention center aren’t new.
In 2020, a U.S. District Court judge ordered the federal government to reduce the number of prisoners at the Adelanto site — the largest immigration detention facility in California — due to overcrowding. Judge Terry J. Hatter ordered ICE to whittle the population down to 475, less than half the current population, according to the congressional members.
Current immigration enforcement efforts are “cruel” and “inhumane,” Sánchez said Tuesday.
“They are not targeting criminals,” she added. “Most of what they are targeting is hard-working immigrants at their place of business.”
Members of Congress pushing for access to detention sites have had mixed results. Although the five congressional members got access in Adelanto on Tuesday, Rep. Jimmy Gomez, D-Los Angeles has been unsuccessful in his efforts to enter a federal building in downtown LA where immigrant families are reportedly being detained.
Gomez posted on social media Tuesday that he was turned away for a third time from the detention facility. According to Gomez, officials told him the facility — which signage declares to be a detention center — is only a field office used for processing, and denied Gomez access.
Staff writer Jessica Keating contributed to this story.
More about Congress and immigration
- What Southern California’s legislators got done in 118th Congress
- Fast-track deportation canceled for 3 detained in Pomona Home Depot immigration sweep
- Trump administration labels San Bernardino, Riverside counties as ‘sanctuary jurisdictions’
- 3 Southern California Democrats denied entry to a high desert ICE detention center Sunday
- Can President Trump ban masks at protests?
- How large are the Los Angeles-area immigration protests?
- ‘No Kings’ rallies draw thousands across Inland Empire to protest Trump
- Immigration raids ratchet up anxiety, empty some businesses of customers and workers
- ICE conducting raids in Pico Rivera — city official concerned about ‘nature and tone of these recent actions’
