A federal judge has ordered federal immigration officials to make immediate changes to improve the health and safety of detainees at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in Southern California’s High Desert. The ruling came in response to a lawsuit alleging inhumane conditions there.
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Last week an assistant US attorney argued during a hearing in Riverside that the federal government isn’t responsible for the treatment of those detained in California’s largest immigration detention center. On Thursday, July 16, Judge Sunshine Sykes issued a preliminary injunction requiring U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to “immediately” make multiple changes to the care of the roughly 1,700 people in detention at the center.
ICE is required to provide the following:
- 24-hour access to clean drinking water
- “Nutritious and sanitary meals” that provide enough calories
- Daily cleanings of the detention center
- Soap and hygiene products be provided to detainees free of charge
- Mold is to be identified and removed at the facility
- Adequate privacy for detainees using the restroom or showering, while keeping security needs in mind
- Access to clean, temperature-appropriate clothing, mattresses, pillows and blankets
- Individual access to the main outdoor recreation yard for at least four hours a day every day, unless there are security issues
- Visits by family must be allowed, and detainees and visitors must be allowed to use the restroom and physical contact, including hugging and holding hands, must be allowed
A group of civil and immigrants rights groups — Public Counsel, along with the Coalition for Human Immigrant Rights, Immigrant Defenders Law Center, and Willkie Farr & Gallagher — filed a lawsuit in January against federal authorities and agencies. They alleged inhumane conditions inside the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, including moldy towels, medical neglect, inadequate food and dirty water.
The suit was backed up by more than two dozen sworn declarations by Adelanto detainees. Federal officials denied that detainees are held in substandard conditions.
In March, California Attorney General Rob Bonta called conditions inside the Adelanto facility “a ticking timebomb.”
“Today’s ruling sends a clear message: no detention facility in this country is above the law,” Rebecca Brown, supervising attorney at Public Counsel is quoted as saying in a joint press release issued by the Immigrant Defenders Law Center. “The court has recognized what we have known all along, that the conditions inside Adelanto are inhumane. This order requires the government to do what it should have done from the start: provide basic human necessities and life saving medical care to the people in its custody.”
“This ruling makes clear that the administration’s misrepresentations about conditions inside the Adelanto ICE prison collapse under the weight of the evidence. Behind Adelanto’s barbed-wired fences, people have endured conditions so egregious that four individuals have lost their lives there in the last six months alone. These deaths were preventable,” Alvaro M. Huerta, director of litigation and advocacy at the Immigrant Defenders Law Center was quoted as saying in the press release. “We celebrate this ruling even while we mourn the pain this administration continues to cause so many families.”
“No one — regardless of immigration status — should be subjected to inhumane treatment or deprived of their fundamental rights. This ruling affirms what impacted communities have been saying for years: dignity, safety, and due process are not optional, and we will keep fighting until those rights are fully upheld,” Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights was quoted as saying in the joint press release.
On Thursday, Sykes ruled that “Plaintiffs have demonstrated they are likely to prevail” in their case, she wrote in her eight-page ruling. The ruling only covers the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, not the neighboring Desert View Annex or any other ICE detention centers.
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In a July 10 hearing, assistant U.S. Attorney Pushkal Mishra tried to argue that the conditions inside the Adelanto ICE Processing Center were the responsibility of private prison contractor GEO Group, which operates the Adelanto ICE Processing Center. ICE requires GEO Group to follow its Performance-Based National Detention Standards, which cover how detainees are to be treated. The agency conducts inspections to monitor treatment, he said.
But his argument contradicted the stance the federal government took in 2022, when the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down California’s ban on for-profit detention facilities. In that case, the federal government had argued that private prisons operated on behalf of the federal government were, legally, federal prisons.
Sykes ruling on Thursday also included new rules for how headcounts are conducted. She also set conditions on when detainees could be put into solitary confinement, and allow access to third-party independent monitors.
She also ordered ICE to develop a plan within 14 days to address medical care and disability accommodations for detainees. An August 2025 report by Disability Rights California said detainees with disabilities inside the detention center are often subjected to abuse and neglect.
Cuban-born Abraham Torres Fernandez spent eight months in total silence inside the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, he wrote in a letter to the Southern California News Group, after immigration agents seized his hearing aids at a Tampa airport. He was eventually Fernandez was provided with hearing aids that didn’t sufficiently address his hearing loss.
According to ICE data, as of April 9, there were an average of 5,805 people in ICE’s California six detention centers this fiscal year. There were 1,733 people detained in the Adelanto ICE Processing Center.
ICE categorizes 27.41% of its California detainees as criminals. ICE further identifies 19.12% of the detainees as “Threat Level 1,” the most dangerous, based on the severity of their “criminality” and how recently it occurred. The agency defines detainees as criminals if they have a conviction or pending criminal charges.
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Staff writer Ryanne Mena contributed to this story.
More on the Adelanto ICE detention center
- Who’s in ICE detention in California? According to ICE, less than 30% are criminals
- People with disabilities detained at ICE’s Adelanto center experience neglect, group says
- Detainees, LA nonprofit file suit alleging inhumane conditions in Adelanto ICE detention center
- ‘It will drive you crazy’: Letters reveal what life is like inside Adelanto ICE detention center
- Citing substandard conditions at Adelanto ICE facility, legal coalition asks judge to order immediate improvements
- AG Bonta calls ICE’s Adelanto detention facility a ‘ticking timebomb’
- The Adelanto ICE detention center population quadrupled in 2025 — but 911 calls increased sixfold
- Adelanto ICE detainees launch hunger strike to demand improved conditions
- Federal attorney: Feds not responsible for Adelanto ICE detention conditions