In response to a lawsuit that alleged unregistered foreign nationals being detained at the Adelanto Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s processing Center in Adlanto are being subjected widespread abuse and inhumane conditions, Federal Judge Judge Sunshine on Thursday issued an order that federal immigration officials undertake immediate reforms at the facility to safeguard the the health and safety of the inmates there.
Public Counsel, along with the Coalition for Human Immigrant Rights (CHIRLA), Immigrant Defenders Law Center, and Willkie Farr & Gallagher, filed a lawsuit in January 2026 against federal authorities and agencies, asserting the operators of the prison, GEO, on behalf of the federal government and the Donald Trump Admionistration were subjecting those incarcerated there to inhumane conditions “a core part of its broader scheme to harass, intimidate, punish, and deport immigrants.”
That mistreatment extended, but was not limited, to providing the inmates with insufficient food, unclean drinking water, moldy towels and inaequate medical care, according to the lawsuit. In encouraging or tolerating the manner in which GEO is operating the Adelanto Immigration and Customs Enforcement Processing Center, Public Counsel, the Coalition for Human Immigrant Rights, Immigrant Defenders Law Center and Willkie Farr & Gallagher maintain the government is denying those incarcerated “basic human needs” such as “food, clothing, shelter, medical care, and reasonable safety.” As such, without having obtained a conviction or any form of adjudicated determination, those inmates are being subjected to punishment that violates their constitutional rights to due process of law.
Named in the lawsuit were the U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement; the agency’s acting director Todd Lyons; Jaime Rios, acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Los Angeles Field Office, Enforcement and Removal Operations, which is responsible for the Adelanto center; the U.S. Department of Homeland Security; and then-current-but-now-former Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Kristi Noem. The four plaintiffs in the suit are two individuals identified only by their initials – L.T. and J.M. and Sevak Mesrobian and Jose Mauro Salazar Garza.
The lawsuit called upon the court to force an end to what was characterized as “unlawful and dangerous conditions at Adelanto and to secure enforceable protections, including adequate medical care, disability accommodations, safe and sanitary conditions, and meaningful oversight.”
In a statement, Public Counsel asserted, “The Constitution does not stop at the doors of a detention center, and being in custody does not strip anyone of the right to basic medical care, humane treatment, or dignity. It protects all ‘persons’ —including immigrants and detained people — from cruel treatment, deliberate indifference to medical needs, and punitive conditions of confinement. Detention cannot mean lawlessness, and no one should be caged, commodified, or forced to endure trauma simply for seeking safety or opportunity.”

The Adelanto ICE Detention Facility, which from 1991 to 2009 was a state prison for adult male inmates, was purchased by the GEO Group in 2010. In May 2011, the U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement contracted with the GEO Group to operate the former prison as an immigration detention center. The facility at present consists of a cluster of three adjacent sections, with what is now designated as Adelanto East, with a capacity of roughly 600 inmates, being the existing prison purchased in June 2010 from the City of Adelanto; the more recently built Adelanto West facility completed in August 2012, with another 700 beds; and the annex completed in 2015, with a capacity of 640 inmates. Under the Biden Administration, the facility was cleared to accommodate up to 1,940 immigrant detainees of all classification levels, and the expected stay of those incarcerated there was an average of 30 days, with the expectation that within that timeframe, a hearing for deportation would be held, and go-ahead for deportation granted, asylum granted or a determination that a more involved hearing process with regard to an asylum request was due the inmate. Under Biden, the population within the Adelanto ICE Detention Facility never neared capacity. Shortly after the initiation of the second Trump Administration in January 2026, large numbers of detainees have flowed into the facility.
GEO Group Inc., as the operator of the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, was not sued, as part of a strategic move on the part of the attorneys involved in the suit – Rebecca Brown and Belinda Escobosa of Public Counsel, Carl Bergquist of the Coalition for Human Immigrant Rights, Alvara Huerta of the Immigrant Defenders Law Center and Nicholas Reddick of Willkie Farr & Gallagher.
Despite not being sued, GEO Group rallied, or attempted to rally, to the defense of the federal government, the Department of Homeland Secutiry and the U.S. Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement in the immediate aftermath of the lawsujit’s filing.
Sidestepping direct comment with regard to lawsuit’s allegations, it sought to deflect them by asserting, “We are proud of the role our company has played for 40 years to support the law enforcement mission of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). In all instances, our support services are monitored by ICE, including by on-site agency personnel, and other organizations within the Department of Homeland Security to ensure compliance with ICE’s detention standards and contract requirements regarding the treatment and services ICE detainees receive. In the event issues are identified, we quickly resolve all of ICE’s concerns as required by ICE’s Quality Assurance Surveillance Plan.”
In addition, GEO Group insisted, “At locations where GEO provides health care services, individuals are provided with access to teams of medical professionals including physicians, nurses, dentists, psychologists, and psychiatrists. Ready access to off-site medical specialists, imaging facilities, Emergency Medical Services, and local community hospitals is also provided when needed.”
Brown, Escobosa, Bergquist, Huerta and Reddick omitted GEO Group from the suit filed in January 2026 because six years previously, in January 2020, during the first Trump Administration, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against the State of California challenging Assembly Bill 32, which aimed to phase out private, for-profit prisons and immigration detention facilities in the Golden State. The case found its way to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which ultimately sided with what had been the Trump Administration’s contention, striking down California’s ban on for-profit detention facilities. In 2022, however, the federal attorneys and the Justice Department, still pursuing the Trump Administration’s goal in its lawsuit, had argued that private prisons operated on behalf of the federal government were, under applicable legal definitions, federal prisons.
This year, with President Trump in office, Assistant US Attorney Pushkal Mishra, in seeking to
counter the gravamen of the lawsuit lodged on behalf of L.T., J.M., Sevak Mesrobian and Jose Mauro Salazar Garza, during a July 10 court hearing told Judge Sykes that “GEO makes day-to-day operational choices” at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center. The issues at the heart of the lawsuit should not be laid at the feet of the federal government Mishra promulgated.
This prompted Escobosa to point out that in 2022, the federal government had taken a position at a 180 degree variance to what it is saying now.
It was the federal government through its Department of Homeland Security, Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, its subdivision of Enforcement and Removal Operations ant the U.S. Department of Customs and Border Protection that “chose to detain those individuals,” Escobosa told Judge Sykes. “the government is responsible for the constitutional violations happening to them every day.”
It is the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement that its operations are legitimate and lawful, that its detainment and deportation efforts are tailored toward targeting “the worst of the worst,” that it is strengthening border security and is engaging in protecting American citizens from drug traffickers, sex traffickers, sexual predators and criminals prone to violence who are in the country illegally. The Adelanto ICE Processing Center is key to that effort of identifying, arresting, detaining, and removing individuals who are subject to removal or unlawfully present in the U.S., according to the Trump Administration.

Sykes on Thursday came down in favor of L.T., J.M., Sevak Mesrobian and Jose Mauro Salazar Garza, issuing at order that the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement provide the inmates hereon out 24-hour access to clean drinking water, nutritious and sanitary meals with sufficient calories, free soap and hygiene products, adequate privacy for detainees using the restroom or showering, access to clean, temperature-appropriate clothing, mattresses, pillows and blankets and contact with family members.
In addition Judge Sykes told the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement it must make routine, daily cleaning of the detention facility, elimination mold within the facility premises, make the main outdoor recreation yard available to inmates for at least four hours a day every day and ensure that family visiting inmates have access to a restroom and be permitted physical contact with the incarcerated individual they are there to see.
According to Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Lauren Bis, “Claims of inhumane conditions at the Adelanto ICE processing facility are false and without merit in their entirety. Those in custody are provided with adequate and nutritious meals, water, medical treatment, and opportunities to communicate with their family members and legal representatives. The Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement has higher detention standards than most U.S. prisons incarcerating U.S. citizens.”