The morning after a federal judge ordered immigration officials to make immediate changes to improve the health and safety of detainees at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, advocates celebrated.
“This victory belongs to all of us,” said Kathryn Eidmann, president and CEO of Public Counsel at a news conference on Friday, July 17. “But most of all, it belongs to the people who had the courage to come forward and tell a federal court what was happening to them inside the Adelanto ICE Processing Center.”
Civil and immigrant 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.
The suit, backed up by more than two dozen sworn declarations by Adelanto detainees, alleged inhumane conditions in the processing center, including moldy towels, medical neglect, inadequate food and dirty water.
In March, California Attorney General Rob Bonta called conditions inside the detention center “a ticking timebomb.”
Late 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.
Friday morning, the federal government denied detainees had been held in substandard conditions.
“Any claim that there are subprime conditions at Adelanto ICE processing facility are FALSE,” a unnamed Department of Homeland Security spokesperson wrote in an email. “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.”
Sykes ordered ICE 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
Sykes’ ruling also included new rules for how headcounts are conducted, set conditions on when detainees could be put into solitary confinement, and ordered the facility to provide access to third-party independent monitors.
The monitors will be a significant benefit to detainees, according to Public Counsel attorney Belinda Escobosa, “because they will have access to the facility, they’ll have access to interview the detained there, and they have access to any of the staff there. That will be followed up by monthly reports to the court to make sure that the government does what it is ordered to do.”
Sykes 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. Immigration agents had seized his hearing aids at a Tampa airport. He was eventually was provided with hearing aids that he said didn’t sufficiently address his hearing loss.
Sykes’ eight-page ruling only covers the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, not the neighboring Desert View Annex or any other ICE detention centers.
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.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California declined to comment on the ruling Friday morning.
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.
The Trump administration “would like nothing more than for all of us to to forget about the thousands of people who are currently trapped within the walls of immigrant prisons across the country, out of sight and out of mind,” said Alvaro Huerta, director of litigation and advocacy with Immigrant Defenders Law Center.
“But we will not forget the people, our siblings, parents, sons and daughters, coworkers, and neighbors held at Adelanto and other internment craft camps across this country. We will not give up hope. We will continue to fight this administration tooth and nail until it’s gone.”
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
- Judge orders major changes at ICE’s Adelanto detention center after attorneys allege ‘inhumane’ conditions there