This story was produced as part of the USC Center for Health Journalism’s California Health Equity Fellowship.
Drain fly larvae appear to be the worm-like creatures allegedly contaminating water inside the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, according to local vector experts who identified the specimens obtained by this news organization.
Claims of contaminated drinking water come weeks after a federal judge ordered major and immediate changes inside the Adelanto ICE facility, including 24-hour access to clean drinking water.
This news organization obtained the specimens from a detained person who said they collected them from the shower floors of the Adelanto facility. They resemble the worm-like creatures that others said are found in the drinking water. The legless insects are about a third of an inch long and are a brown-blackish color. Four experts at the Greater LA County Vector Control District identified the creatures as drain fly larvae.
The detainee who supplied the drain fly larvae to a reporter asked not to be named for fear of reprisal.
The insects first surfaced in news media reports in a video recorded by the family of Carlitos Ricardo Parias, a detainee also known as Richard LA. At around 7 p.m. on Wednesday, July 29, Parias said, he was approached by another man detained in his 80-person unit saying he saw worms in his cup of water that came from a 10-gallon jug of drinking water.
“The guy wanted to take (the collected specimens) to the guard but I told him, ‘No, first we need to document this’,” Parias said in Spanish during an interview.
The pests were collected from the drinking water to show Parias’ family during the video call.
“I want to shed light on everything that is happening in this place,” Parias said.
Two other men corroborated Parias’ claims of contaminated drinking water.
“I filter the water with my underwear… I need to drain it if I drink it,” said another man detained inside the Adelanto facility who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation in his immigration proceedings.
“[My underwear] caught two little ones,” he added.
Some of the men in his unit began buying bottled water from the commissary if their account had money. Some without those means said they’d boil the water before drinking it.
Another man said about 10 people were sick and vomiting inside his unit. “We think it’s because of the water,” said the man during an interview in Spanish, who is also remaining anonymous due to his fear of reprisal in his immigration case.
In a response to questions about Adelanto’s water quality, an unnamed representative for GEO Group, which runs the facility under contract with ICE, said, “Detainees at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center have 24-hour access to clean, potable drinking water.”
The GEO Group representative also said that the Adelanto facility has its tap water tested each year by a nationally recognized FDA-certified company, and added that results from its latest test – conducted in January – found all results to be within required ranges.
The private-prison company did not provide the name of the water testing company or the results of the January test when asked.
The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to questions related to this news organization’s findings.
Concerns of poor water quality inside the facility have been raised by detained people for months.
In January, a lawsuit was filed by civil and immigrant rights groups against federal authorities and agencies alleging inhumane treatment inside Adelanto, citing poor water quality, spoiled food, moldy showers, and other issues.
On July 16, U.S. District Judge Sunshine Sykes ordered a list of immediate improvements to the Adelanto facility, including 24-hour access to clean drinking water.
Nearly 1,700 people are detained at the immigration detention center, according to ICE’s latest published detention numbers from July 20th. The center is roughly 85 miles northeast of Los Angeles in the Mojave Desert.
‘Gross violation’ is a ‘clear warning sign’
Drain fly larvae aren’t well suited to survive in human intestines after being ingested, and aren’t likely to cause serious illness, but ingesting the larvae could cause temporary inflammation of the inner lining of some organs and body cavities, such as the mouth and stomach, according to a review published in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology.
Drain flies, and their larvae, are a commonly found household pest. But the insects’ presence implies that organic buildup, stagnant water, biofilm, or another sanitation failure may exist somewhere in the water system, said Dr. Jason Andrews, a professor at Stanford’s Division of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine who co-authored a study on mortality in ICE detention centers in the Journal of the American Medical Association in April.
“The central public health concern is not whether swallowing a drain fly larva is likely to cause severe illness. It is that visible larvae in water reportedly being used for drinking are a clear warning sign of inadequate sanitation, plumbing maintenance, and environmental oversight inside a detention facility,” said Andrews, who also has studied health in ICE detention centers for about three years.
Andrews emphasized that environmental issues that could be quickly remedied at home, work, or school can persist in ICE detention because impacted people have limited power in avoiding, documenting, or fixing the hazard.
“Visible organisms in drinking water are therefore not merely unpleasant, they represent a failure of basic service provision and public health protection,” he said.
The appropriate response, Andrews said, to reports of contaminated drinking water inside an ICE detention facility isn’t to minimize the toxicity of the specimen but to remove the affected water source and provide bottled or other safe drinking water, examine the plumbing system, and conduct independent microbiological testing. Without that, he said, government officials can’t assure detained people that the water is free of harmful bacteria or other contaminants.
“People in ICE detention cannot choose where they get their water or reliably obtain a safe alternative. That makes the government responsible for ensuring that drinking water is consistently safe, accessible, and properly monitored,” said Dr. Andrews.
For Greg Pierce, the director of UCLA’s Water Resources Group and director of the Human Right to Water Solutions Lab, the video and reporting of the larvae suggest, “an acute and gross violation of basic drinking water quality standards, which poses an immediate health risk.” He studies policy and planning related to water quality.
Water quality issues inside a carceral facility, like an ICE detention center, aren’t surprising and pre-date the second Trump administration, he said, but “That is not to say that it’s acceptable or no big deal, it’s just known among those who look at hotspots of drinking water quality issues and water inequities that carceral facilities have more issues, and are often overlooked,” Pierce said.
Pierce said that available evidence is pointing to the facility having an on-site issue with plumbing, “which is the sole responsibility of the facility [and] not any outside water system.”
The Adelanto ICE Processing Center gets its drinking water from the City of Adelanto’s public water system, said Blair Robertson, a spokesperson with the State Water Resources Control Board.
The agency regulates the city’s public water system, but not the plumbing of water distribution in privately owned facilities, such as the Adelanto ICE facility which is owned and operated by private-prison company GEO Group.
“Based on our records, the water delivered by the City of Adelanto’s public water system meets drinking water requirements, and we have not received complaints regarding the quality of water delivered by the public water system to consumers in the Adelanto service area, including the detention facility,” Robertson added.
Other drinking water issues
Eleven men at Adelanto filed grievances related to drinking water access on July 19, according to documents obtained and reviewed by this publication.
One of those men is Julius Fredrick, who said it was done in a collective effort to try to bring improvements. He said his unit regularly goes without drinking water for four to five hours at a time.
“This is a continuous problem, and nothing’s being done,” he said in an interview.
In response to each of the grievances, a GEO Group grievance coordinator named “N. Dale” wrote that all faucets in the facility provide safe drinking water.
“Since drinking water is available from all faucets throughout the facility at all times, and water jugs are provided as an additional convenience, your grievance is denied,” the responses to all 11 grievances stated.
The unnamed GEO Group spokesperson responding to the larvae allegations said that each unit inside the facility has drinking fountains and that the water containers are cleaned, sanitized, and refilled three times a day.
Three men detained in three different units inside the Adelanto facility said that no drinking fountains can be found in their units.