The federal government isn’t responsible for the way detainees are treated inside the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, an assistant US attorney argued Friday.
“At the end of the day, GEO makes day-to-day operational choices,” assistant US attorney Pushkal Mishra told federal Judge Sunshine Sykes said Friday, July 10, in U.S. District Court in Riverside. He was referring to GEO Group, the private prison contractor that operates the Adelanto ICE Processing Center.
Attorneys arguing on behalf of detained immigrants pointed out the federal government had argued the exact opposite in 2022. That year, 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.
“The government chose to detain those individuals and the government is responsible for the constitutional violations happening to them every day,” Belinda Escobosa, an attorney with Public Counsel, told Sykes.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement requires GEO Group to follow its Performance-Based National Detention Standards that cover how detainees are to be treated.
ICE’s PBNDS standards, Escobosa said, “are the minimum requirements when detaining human beings.”
Public Counsel, along with the Coalition for Human Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), Immigrant Defenders Law Center, and Willkie Farr & Gallagher, filed a lawsuit in January against federal authorities and agencies. They allege inhumane conditions inside the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, including moldy towels, medical neglect, inadequate food and dirty water.
“These are facility-wide deficiencies,” Escobosa said Friday.
The suit is backed up by more than two dozen sworn declarations by Adelanto detainees. Federal officials have denied that detainees are held in substandard conditions.
In March, California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a brief in support, calling conditions inside the Adelanto facility “a ticking timebomb.”
An April analysis by the Southern California News Group showed that, even as populations inside the Adelanto ICE Processing Center and the Desert View Annex next door quadrupled in 2025, after President Donald Trump returned to office, calls to 911 from inside the facilities jumped to six times the average number of calls from the previous four years.
Mishra said there was “no proof” of issues with bad water or other unhealthy conditions.
“We have over 1,500 civil detainees in government detention and the evidence is overwhelming that the government’s position is not true,” Escobosa told Sykes.
The only confirmed complaints Mishra said he knew about were issues with access to the recreation yard and wi-fi internet, both of which were resolved once ICE learned of the issues.
“The focus of any resolution has to be GEO,” Mishra said. “If the information doesn’t percolate up to the government, how can the government do anything?”
ICE conducts surprise inspections of detention facilities and outlines steps needed to address any problems they find, he said.
Sykes grilled Mishra over why the federal government had provided the court documents with key information blacked out, including the number of people detained, how many complaints had been made, the details of those complaints and how they had resolved.
Mishra called the move “an oversight.”
Sykes seemed skeptical of Mishra’s argument absolving ICE of responsibility for conditions inside the Adelanto ICE Processing Center and wary of establishing a sweeping precedent for future legal cases.
“Once the government brings in a third party (contractor), they can just wash their hands of constitutional obligations?” she asked.
The plaintiffs in the case are hoping Sykes will turn their suit into a class action lawsuit on behalf of detainees.
The federal government, meanwhile, wants the entire case dismissed.
Sykes did not make a decision on Friday, but expects to soon.
“I do understand there’s need to get a decision out sooner rather than later,” she said.
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.
Friday’s case only covers the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, not the neighboring Desert View Annex or any other ICE detention centers.
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.
More on the Adelanto ICE detention center
- Who’s in ICE detention in California? According to ICE, less than 30% are criminals
- Detainees, LA nonprofit file suit alleging inhumane conditions in 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