A group of Democratic members of Congress said they found mold and hair in shower areas and dirty cookware and couldn’t talk with detainees when they made an unannounced tour of the Adelanto ICE Processing Center on Friday, Oct. 16.
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Rep. Robert Garcia, D-Long Beach, said he and six other members of Congress waited more than 30 minutes to get into the facility for an unannounced inspection before they were allowed in shortly after 11 a.m.
“Once we started walking around, it became clear why” said Garcia, the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. “There clearly had been cleaning, they’re washing the floors, they were putting things away. They were clearly unprepared for what we were seeing, which was, for a lot of us, some very disturbing instances which no person should have to go through while they’re here.”
Garcia was accompanied by Reps. Derek Tran, D-Cypress, Dave Min, D-Irvine, Norma Torres, D-Ontario, Judy Chu, D-Pasadena, Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove and D-Los Angeles, Rep. Luz Rivas, D-Arleta to the High Desert city of Adelanto. He and other members of Congress previously sued the Trump administration last year after being denied access to federal immigration detention facilities.
Representatives were denied access to meet with detainees and told it happened to be time to count the detainees, Min said. He saw garbage and books left out on the tables and said it looked like detainees were taken back to their cells as the representatives arrived. In the kitchens, Min said the floors were slippery from recent cleaning, but ovens and cookware were “filthy” and one vat was filled with taco meat that he said looked inedible. Staff told representatives they’d be serving tuna sandwiches Friday, but didn’t show them the tuna itself, Min said.
It was in stark contrast to a scheduled visit Min made last year, when he said the facility was serving food and staff said they brought an In-N-Out truck for detainees each week. After talking with constituents in the facility, Min heard a different story of dirty water and inedible food.
“That is why I think it’s so important that we come here and we have the authority … to have these unannounced site visits, because we know that they lie to us,” Min said. “We know that they’re going to sanitize things and give us a tour.”
While touring the facility’s showers, Torres said she saw clumps of hair on the floor and mold in shower areas. She also toured the women’s facility, where detainees told her about a sewage backup a few days prior and said they were served food while sewage came out of their drains. A warden told Torres that he reported the sewage problem and brought in people to fix it as soon as he learned of it.
Torres noticed the facility implemented water filters, which she credited to representatives continually visiting the detention center.
“Obviously, we think it’s a total waste of dollars for the federal government,” Torres said. “It is a misuse of hardworking taxpayers’ dollars to purchase an aging facility like this with so many issues, not only waters issues but I guess now a contamination (of) sewer pipes.”
About 1,700 people are being held at the Adelanto detention center, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Four people have died at the facility since September 2025.
Earlier this month, an independent monitor released her first report about conditions inside the detention center. A federal judge ordered ICE to allow independent monitors into the facility in July after a lawsuit. Although there were a few areas of improvement, the report found that many of the steps the judge had ordered ICE to take to improve health and safety into the Adelanto ICE detention center had not yet been implemented.
Civil and immigrants rights groups filed the lawsuit in January. They alleged inhumane conditions in 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.
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The most recent inspection of the facility by federal officials was on Sept. 18, 2025, according to ICE’s publicly released data, as of July 9.
California Attorney General Rob Bonta previously called conditions inside the Adelanto facility “a ticking timebomb.”
Kamlager-Dove said she has a constituent inside Adelanto who hasn’t received proper medical treatment. She questioned why more hasn’t been done to lower death rates inside Adelanto and other immigration detention facilities and why representatives have received reports of detainees seeking medical care only to get ibuprofen and be sent back to their cells.
“Why is it that when we are asking folks, medical officials in Adelanto, real questions about how people are being treated, we are getting the runaround?” Kamlager-Dove said.
ICE has regularly defended conditions at the Adelanto, stating recently: “Any claim that there are subprime conditions at Adelanto ICE Processing Center are FALSE.”
“All detainees are provided with proper meals, water, medical treatment, and have opportunities to communicate with their family members and lawyers. ICE has higher detention standards than most U.S. prisons that hold actual U.S. citizens,” ICE said in an email on Oct. 1.
According to ICE data, as of July 9, there were an average of 6,414 people in ICE’s eight California detention centers this fiscal year. There were 1,687 people detained in the Adelanto ICE Processing Center — more than a quarter of all the detainees in ICE’s California detention centers.
ICE categorizes 26.15% of its California detainees as criminals, including 38.71% of those detained at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center. The agency defines detainees as criminals if they have a conviction or pending criminal charge.
The agency further identifies 18.8% of the detainees as “Threat Level 1,” the most dangerous, based on the severity of their “criminality” and how recently it occurred. In the Adelanto center, 30.05% of detainees were categorized as Threat Level 1.
On Oct. 5, the GEO Group, the private company that runs the facility on behalf of ICE, announced that both the Adelanto ICE Processing Center and the neighboring Desert View Annex have been sold to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for $950 million.
The company expects to still run the facilities under contract for ICE, according to GEO Group.
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Staff writer Ryanne Mena contributed to this story.
More about conditions inside the Adelanto ICE Processing Center
- Who’s in ICE detention in California? According to ICE, less than 30% are criminals
- AG Bonta calls ICE’s Adelanto detention facility a ‘ticking timebomb’
- Judge orders major changes at ICE’s Adelanto detention center after attorneys allege ‘inhumane’ conditions there
- 3 congressional members demand investigation into alleged retaliation against Adelanto ICE detainees
- Mold, larva found inside ICE’s Adelanto detention center, but conditions improve, report says