Outcast to Adelanto

“In this episode of "Through the Labyrinth," we dive into the conditions at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, which is operated by The GEO Group, a Florida-based company that makes billions of dollars running immigrant detention centers. 

Listeners also get to hear from a local immigration attorney about what family visitation looks like at Adelanto, as well as the harsh treatment they and their loved ones endure throughout the detainment process. 

Guest Information 

• Julia Flores: Wife of Rafael Flores, A Current Detainee at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center 
• Brad Thornton: Immigration Attorney at Shan Potts Law Offices

Voiceover Artist

• Olivia Muñoz: English Voiceover for Julia Flores

"Through the Labyrinth" is hosted by investigative journalist Morgan Keith. She has lived in LA for six years and worked at several media outlets, including the Beverly Press, Daily Journal, Southern California Public Radio, and Business Insider. Morgan now works as a professor and adviser for student media publications at Pierce College. She is also a co-founder of The Southlander. 

Please rate and review our show on Apple Podcasts. 

Visit thesouthlander.com to subscribe to our newsletter, follow us on social media, and read our previous reporting.” 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:07

If this administration wants to deport these immigrants, um you can initiate removal proceedings in immigration court, you can go through the entire process and you can deport them. But during that removal proceeding, you don't have to have them detained and away from their family. Away from their family when this could be the last time ever they'll see them if you get deported. And their last days, hours, months is looking at an cell in the in Adelanto.

SPEAKER_00 0:40

For policy. It's racism. I'm just gonna come out and say it. Let's not pretend. And it's awful.

SPEAKER_02 0:58

You're listening to Through the Labyrinth. I'm Morgan Keith, an investigative reporter with the Southlander. In this week's episode, we explore the Adelanto Ice Processing Center, a facility where many thousands of detainees have been held, often for long periods of time, while awaiting the fate of their immigration cases. I want to take a second and provide you with a bit of background about the facility before we dive into the current state of affairs. Geo Group is a Florida-based company that invests in for-profit prisons, mental health facilities, and immigrant detention centers like Adelanto. In 2024, Geo Group made $2.42 billion in profits, according to a company press release on its investors' relations page, nearly a billion of which came directly from its contracts with ICE to operate detention facilities. So we know based on figures released by Geogroup that operating facilities like Adelanto is very profitable. Yet the conditions inside can be incredibly dangerous for those detained. Since last June, four Mexican nationals detained in California died after being sent to Adelanto. Their names were Jose Guadalupe Ramos Solano, Alberto Gutierrez Reyes, Gabriel Garcia Aviles, and Ismael Ayala Uribe. According to a 2026 report from the California Department of Justice, each of their families alleged that they received inadequate medical care while in ICE custody. Broader concerns about conditions inside Adelanto have been raised by activists, lawyers, civil rights groups, and journalists. An investigation published last June by LA Times reporters Jenny Jarvey and Nathan Solis found that there was a steep rise in the number of detainees being held at the facility, which coincided with an explosion of safety and health concerns, including inadequate medical care, unsanitary conditions, and moldy food. These alleged unsafe and inhumane living conditions led dozens being held in custody at Adelanto to launch a hunger strike on May 19th. According to a June press release from Congresswoman Judy Chu's office, the strikers are demanding the removal of mold, access to clean drinking water, adequate food, and timely medical care for individuals with chronic health conditions. I think it is important for you to hear directly from one of the strikers about why they have taken this course of action. The following statement was provided by one of the participants to Immigrant Defenders Law Center, also known as MDEF. Our due process rights are being violated. They are using taxpayer dollars to abuse immigrants. The things they say publicly do not match what we are living through. People here cannot get proper medical care, cannot afford attorneys, cannot pay bond, and many feel forced to give up and sign deportation paperwork. We are being treated like animals. The day after being visited by Chu and other congressional representatives, several of the strikers were allegedly zip tied, threatened with tear gas, and transfers to other ICE facilities, and placed in solitary confinement, according to MDEF. Kyan Shaquille Suaso, a Belizean national and one of the main organizers of the strike, was deported without the required prior notice to his attorney or the Central District of California just seven days after speaking publicly about the conditions inside Adelanto, according to MDEF. All of this context is incredibly important for understanding the mental and physical states of detainees at facilities operated by Jail Group. Loved ones drive hours through the desert for family visitation, often taking time off of work and scraping money together for gas or local motel room, only to discover upon arrival that their family member has been traumatized and subject to harsh conditions during their time in custody. This is the backdrop of the stories you will hear throughout this episode. To get the full story and speak with family members of those being held in ICE custody, I knew I had to take a trip and see Adelanto in person. I made plans to pick up one of my Southlander colleagues, and we hit the road. So I made it to Adelanto with my colleague Ben Camacho. We drove about an hour and a half from the center of Los Angeles, and now we are in the Mojave Desert, just setting up to interview and shoot some footage outside of the West unit, um, which seems totally barren. Um for how many people are being held here, there's not really any signs of life. I've seen a couple of cars come in and out of the parking lot. I've seen um a couple of guards standing out front of the building, maybe shift change, but other than that, I haven't seen a single person. Um there's a big old lot of unmarked cars. I see a few people walking out, presumably after visiting a loved one, a family member, maybe uh walk back and try and get a chance to speak with them. It's a little bit tricky navigating because the parking lot is fenced in and is private property. So we are just standing outside the gate and hopeful that maybe someone is willing to speak with us. Thankfully, Ben was able to flag down a mother and her young daughter who had just left visitation hours inside the facility. Her story, like so many of the other family members I have spoken with, is one of prolonged hardship and sadness.

SPEAKER_03 8:30

Okay, me uh my number is Julia. Uh, well, I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_04 8:38

My name is Julia. Like every Sunday since March 1st, 2025, I've been coming here to visit my husband. It's been a year and three months now. We well, it's hard, honestly. We've been in this process for a year now, and the lawyers just quote prices. So much for this, so much for that. Filing this paper costs this much. And the truth is, work isn't going well right now. Everything is expensive. Rent, food, plus I have to put money in his account here so we can buy food and we can communicate. And then there's the drive. It's almost two hours from the San Fernando Valley to here. Gas is so expensive right now. It all takes a toll. And since I'm doing this alone, it's very difficult. I just hope that at some point everything changes. That, like many others here, he can get out. That some legal development comes along to help them leave this place.

SPEAKER_02 9:36

Visitation hours aren't exactly the family reunion that you might imagine. There are strict rules surrounding the process, leaving little room for privacy or intimacy of any kind.

SPEAKER_03 9:54

Rafael Flores.

SPEAKER_04 10:16

He has a nine-year-old. Well, she has known since the very moment he was detained, and it has really affected the time she gets to spend with him. It's very hard coming here and only being allowed to give him a hug and nothing more. They are children. They want to be close, to talk up close, but they are kept far apart. You have to shout and everyone hears what you're saying. There's no privacy for conversation. And when the guards see the children getting close to their dad, they come over and say the kids can't touch him, that there's no touching allowed, or that something might happen. It's difficult because many people bring one or two-year-olds who wander all over the place. The guards tell everyone no, but not kindly. They do it in a discriminatory way. It's very sad. You feel terrible for the children when those kinds of comments are made because they don't understand. They don't know any better. No matter how much you tell them, don't do that, they still don't understand. That day he arrived. Well, we left the house. I went to drop our daughter off at school and he went to set up the stand. There was another young woman there. She said there were some suspicious SUVs. Then, in less than five seconds, they were right in front of them with their guns drawn, telling him to stop and not move. They grabbed him without saying a word. Then the young woman called me. She was screaming and crying, telling me to come over. I kept asking, but what happened? They're taking Raphael away, I was told. Who? Immigration. Come over here. I didn't know what to do. I had just dropped my daughter off at school, and I wanted to rush over to the checkpoint to try to do something, even though I knew there was nothing I could do. By the time I arrived, they had already taken him. They have that basement there. That's where they take everyone they catch, and then they transfer them here. One person who died inside his cell had all the forms he'd submitted asking to be taken out because he was feeling unwell. When he passed away, my husband and the others there saw the guards come in, grab all those papers, and throw them away so no one would know the man had been sending requests for help because he was sick. It ended up looking as if he'd never spoken up, as if he never mentioned feeling ill, so that right up until the moment he died, it seemed like no one knew anything. Yet everyone was there and did see it. Because when someone feels that sick, they shout and bang on the door trying to get heard.

SPEAKER_02 17:00

In June 2020, an excessive use of force incident impacted roughly 100 detainees who were being held at Atalanto. A press release from the First Amendment Coalition described the scope of the incident as follows. Forty-eight hours after having been released from a three-day lockdown, detainees received orders to return to their cells because of a protest being held outside of the facility. A group protested this order by remaining in place and refusing to return to their cells. The correctional emergency response team stormed the unit and blanketed everyone with pepper bullets and spray, leaving them to sit in their cells for up to three days while saturated in chemicals meant to cause debilitating pain. They were not given access to showers, fresh air, or cleaning supplies, with many resorting to using toilet water to try to cleanse themselves and provide a modicum of relief. The named plaintiffs described coughing, chest pain, intermittent blindness, and burning skin that continued for weeks after the attack. While this incident occurred six years ago, the secrecy surrounding the inner workings of the detention center has allowed for the alleged punitive culture against detainees to continue largely unchecked. The public is still being kept in the dark about what's really going on inside Adelanto, and we are pushing for transparency and accountability through our reporting. If our motion to unseal these records is successful, we will gain access to over 50 documents that are currently under seal, including footage, emails, reports, and logs about this incident. These will help us paint a more accurate picture of previous harms that were perpetrated inside of Adelanto by Geo Group, according to former detainees, as well as the system that protected the guards operating the facility from public scrutiny. One of our partners at Public Justice, Jacqueline Arcouche, summarized best why obtaining these records is so important. She said, we can meaningfully pull back the curtain on what went on inside Adelanto and how people were treated by a corporation entirely responsible for their care. The public deserves to see what our money pays for and what Geo Group is so determined to keep secret, nearly six years later. To support our ability to publish more investigative reporting, please consider becoming a paid member today at thesauthlander.com for as little as $5 a month. He decided he could no longer sit by and watch it unfold. Instead, he decided to get involved by changing his whole career, going to law school, and becoming an immigration attorney. Brad has stayed extremely busy since the start of the second Trump administration. On top of regularly representing individuals detained at Adelanto, he also shepherds their loved ones through the family visitation process, coaching them on what to expect when they arrive.

SPEAKER_01 20:34

Well, I think that once you're there, I mean, depending on how far you got to drive or whatever, but once you're there and you check in and you've had an appointment to see your loved one or whatnot, then they call in for them. And it usually takes about 45 minutes to an hour to get the detainee. Um for the families, they go in also um groups as well. So it depends upon you know how many families are there today, and they all have to stand in line and they all have to first check in, and then they take so many in one group.

SPEAKER_02 21:09

So then they're according to what Brad has seen on the ground, families are not given private spaces for their brief reunions, unlike consultations between attorneys and detainees.

SPEAKER_01 21:20

So then they go get the detainees, which takes the, like I said, 45 minutes an hour or whatever. They leave the family then through metal detectors and then into a common area where there's tables and places for each of the families to sit and stuff like that. And then once it's over, they you know they leave and stuff.

SPEAKER_02 21:38

It is not uncommon for families to go weeks, if not months at a time between visits.

SPEAKER_01 21:44

One of the heartbreaking aspects of working this job as a attorney is uh seeing families in such pain. Um and that crowns they're overly, you know, seeing how it it affects the most core. um unit of our lives our family. Um and I really think that that is something that you can't re you know, you can't feel it unless you're you're there. You can imagine it and stuff. Um but and these people are hard working most don't have as I said any criminal record whatsoever and you know they're being harshly treated and and their families are also being harshly uh treated as well. Um it's all about quotas. It's all about policy.

SPEAKER_02 22:42

Today's episode of Through the Labyrinth covered a lot of ground. Let's do a quick recap. Many immigrants detained in Southern California are sent to the Otalanto Ice Processing Center in the Mojave Desert. They are typically held for longer periods of time as they await a final decision on their immigration case or they make a decision to self-deport. Adelanto is operated by the Geo Group, which has been inundated with lawsuits that allege dangerous, exploitative and unsanitary conditions in their detention facilities. Since last summer, four Mexican nationals died after being detained and sent to Adelanto. Each of their families alleged that they experienced medical neglect during their time in ICE custody. Dozens of detainees at Adelanto launched a hunger strike on May 19th, alleging that they are experiencing unsafe and inhumane living conditions. Reports by MDEF and other Southern California news outlets found that ICE has retaliated against hunger strikers who have spoken out publicly, with some allegedly being zip tied, threatened with tear gas, placed in solitary confinement, and even fast-tracked for deportation. Family members of those being held in long-term detention at Adelanto are under immense pressure, both emotionally and financially. They often drive hours for brief visitations where they are watched closely by guards, and when they return home, they not only need to figure out how to pay their bills with one less financial provider in the house, but they also have to scrape together additional money for lawyers and other costs incurred while traveling to Otolonto, such as gas, childcare, and time taken off of work. According to immigration attorney Brad Thornton, who represents several people being held in Otolonto, immigration detention facilities disrupt family dynamics and cause immense pain. He added that the majority of his clients have no criminal record whatsoever but are still treated harshly.com to stay up to date on our latest reporting. As Los Angeles's only worker owned investigative newsroom, we strive to bring you stories that would otherwise go uncovered by other local outlets. You can support our work by becoming a subscriber and following us on Instagram, blue sky or TikTok. Thank you for listening to Through the Labyrinth. I'm Morgan Keith.