As ICE Reaches Deadline for Decision on Adelanto ICE Facility’s Future, Rep. Chu Leads Colleagues to Advocate for Its Immediate, Permanent Closure
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Rep. Judy Chu (CA-28) led a letter, co-signed by 20 House Democratic colleagues, to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Department of Justice (DOJ), urging them to halt efforts to admit new detainees at Adelanto ICE Processing Center located in Adelanto, California, and immediately close the facility permanently. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) set a deadline of September 30, 2024, for a decision on the facility’s future.
“We write to express our concern regarding the continued operation of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Adelanto Processing Center in California and urge you to halt efforts to admit new detainees and immediately close the facility permanently,” the Members wrote to Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Attorney General Merrick Garland. “The Adelanto ICE Processing Center, operated by the GEO Group, has a long and troubling history of documented human rights abuses, including inadequate medical care, poor living conditions, neglect and mistreatment, and even deaths that ICE has deemed preventable. Numerous investigations and reports from nonprofit organizations, federal and state oversight agencies, and news organizations have highlighted the facility’s persistent failure to meet basic standards of care and human decency.”
Members of Congress have consistently raised concerns about the unconstitutional conditions and health care risks posed to detained immigrants within the low-capacity Adelanto facility, including in a 2015 letter and December 2023 letter to DHS. ICE has previously announced that a task order to determine the facility’s future was expected on or before December 19, 2023. That deadline has been extended twice – to February 19, 2024, and then to September 30, 2024. Because of the inconclusiveness of the task order, DOJ has filed a motion to remove the intake prohibition that has been in place for the Adelanto facility since 2020. That motion comes despite repeated confirmation that GEO Group, which runs the facility and others, is unable to provide adequate health and mental health care.
“As we approach another deadline for the conclusion of this task order, we write to again to express our support for the permanent closure of the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, a facility that has undermined basic human rights and continues to expose the remaining detainees to risk of illness, injury, and even death. Further, we urge the Department of Justice to cease their pursuit of removing the intake ban in the Roman v. Wolf case, which will only lead to placing more detainees in harm’s way. The decision to close this dangerous facility is long overdue. As Members of Congress, we have been sounding the alarm on Adelanto for over a decade and will continue to fight for the protection of human rights regardless of immigration status,” the Members concluded.
Click here to read the letter.