{"id":81088,"date":"2026-05-24T02:10:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T09:10:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=81088"},"modified":"2026-05-24T02:10:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T09:10:08","slug":"hunger-strikers-protest-conditions-at-adelanto-ice-detention-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=81088","title":{"rendered":"Hunger Strikers Protest Conditions at Adelanto ICE Detention Center"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By<\/span>Li Lovett<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Image courtesy of Defend Migrants Alliance SoCal<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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At least 20 immigrants detained at California\u2019s Adelanto ICE Processing Center have gone on hunger strike. The group launched the strike May 19 in protest against what they say are inhumane living conditions, medical neglect, and abuse.<\/p>\n

The center, operated by the private prison company GEO Group, has been the focus of numerous complaints and lawsuits, and has seen four deaths of detainees this year.\u201c<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are many people suffering here,\u201d the striking detainees said in a statement. \u201cThis is the only way we have to raise our voice. We hope there are no consequences, because there are older people who are suffering even more. This is a call to stop the suffering and to respect our dignity as human beings.\u201d<\/p>\n

A May 20 press conference organized by Defend Migrants Alliance captured the voices of family and community advocates supporting the strikers, who are housed in the center\u2019s Desert View Annex in San Bernardino County.<\/p>\n

Sonia Calderon spoke through tears about conditions that her brother, Jose Martinez, has experienced. Martinez, who fled violence in his native El Salvador, has been detained for two years at the Adelanto detention facility.<\/p>\n

According to his sister, he has been denied medication, despite having suffered repeated falls. Her sister-in-law also struggles to pay rent during her brother\u2019s prolonged detention.<\/p>\n

Caleb Soto is an attorney at the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON). He visits the facility each week to see the people he is representing. Speaking during the conference, he described the lack of medical care at the facility.<\/p>\n

\u201cMedical appointments can take weeks or even months to be approved and often last 60 seconds ending with a prescription of Tylenol, Advil, or even a salt packet. People with serious conditions go untreated,\u201d said Soto.<\/p>\n

\u201cHunger strike is not the first resort,\u201d he added. \u201cIt\u2019s what people do when every other option has been taken from them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The hunger strikers put forward a list of demands that include adequate medical care, improved conditions, nutritious food, the right of detainees to organize, accountability for detainees\u2019 deaths, and bond reform.<\/p>\n

Four of six deaths<\/a>\u00a0in California detention centers this past year have occurred at the Adelanto facility, which \u2014\u00a0along with the Desert View Annex \u2014\u00a0has a capacity of 2,690 beds. The number of detainees held there went from 424 in 2023 to 2,087 in 2025, when the state\u2019s Department of Justice last visited the site.<\/p>\n

Bertie Hernandez with California Immigrant Youth Justice Alliance supports legal defense for immigrants facing deportation and organizes with Shut Down Adelanto Coalition. Hernandez says that conditions haven\u2019t changed since the first Trump administration.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have gotten worse due to the overpopulation at these immigration jails,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Hernandez praised the courage of the hunger strikers who could face retaliation for speaking out, including\u00a0solitary confinement<\/a>, forced feeding, or transfer out of state. \u201cThe repression and retaliation, and the abuse is day-to-day in this detention center.\u201d<\/p>\n

A class action lawsuit filed in LA federal court by Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights LA and partnering organizations seeks legal remedies for all immigrants detained at Adelanto under \u201cdangerous conditions and pervasive abuses.\u201d<\/p>\n

In mid-May, Attorney General Rob Bonta released a report on conditions in California\u2019s detention facilities. The\u00a0report<\/a>\u00a0documented the record high number of detainee deaths this past year, the lack of food, poor sanitary conditions, cold temperatures, and medical neglect.<\/p>\n

Border Czar Tom Homan has\u00a0told reporters<\/a>\u00a0that the conditions at detention facilities were better than in jails and prisons, and downplayed the rise in deaths of detainees.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s a lie,\u201d said Hernandez. \u201cThe food that they serve is often the food that even the jails don\u2019t even want. A lot of the food that comes is rotten, right? And no one should die in this detention center.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guillermo Torres recalls bearing witness to the suffering of detainees at Adelanto when hunger strikers were mistreated for protesting, and says these conditions have not improved.<\/p>\n

A program director at Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, he described a recent visit with a mother from Colombia who suffered a dislocation in her shoulder during her arrest. The GEO Group staff ignored her cries and pleas, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey denied her help and they told her that they couldn\u2019t do anything, and that she had to put the bone back in place herself after screaming and crying. And that\u2019s what continues to be at Adelanto,\u201d noted Torres.<\/p>\n

Immigrants in detention, meanwhile, are denied options for release on bond back to their communities. The bond system has been \u201csystematically dismantled,\u201d said Soto. \u201cThe Trump administration declared that anyone who entered without papers was ineligible for bond, regardless of their record, their family, their ties to the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

A\u00a0February ruling<\/a>\u00a0ostensibly ended the Trump administration\u2019s efforts to deny bond to immigrant detainees, though, according to Soto, \u201cICE and the immigration judges there at Adelanto kept applying it anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultimately community advocates want Adelanto and other detention facilities to be shut down.<\/p>\n

GEO Group\u2014along with private prison firm CoreCivic\u2014is reporting\u00a0significant profits<\/a>\u00a0from these operations. Both companies stand to benefit from the $75 billion additional funding set aside for immigration enforcement and detention centers under H.R. 1.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will continue to add our voices to \u2026 shut down this place,\u201d Torres said. \u201cAnd not only this place, but all these horrific immigration centers that should not exist.\u201d<\/p>\n

This story is part of \u201cAqu\u00ed Estamos\/Here We Stand<\/a>,\u201d a collaborative reporting project of American Community Media and community news outlets statewide.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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