Judge reluctant to order ICE to improve conditions at Southern California facility

RIVERSIDE, Calif. (CN) — A federal judge on Tuesday expressed reluctance to order U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to improve conditions for detainees at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center in Southern California.

U.S. District Judge Sunshine Sykes said at a hearing in Riverside that, while the purported conditions at Adelanto are concerning, the motion for a preliminary injunction brought by the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights and four detainees might be premature.

The Joe Biden appointee didn’t issue a final decision at the hearing and took the request under submission.

The federal defendants, Sykes said, had brought up a legitimate point how an injunction would be enforceable since GEO Group, the company operating the facility under a contract with ICE, and the warden of the facility aren’t named defendants in the lawsuit.

In this regard, she wondered, what would happen if she ordered ICE to make a certain number of nurses available at Adelanto?

“ICE would then have to tell GEO Group that the court ordered 12 nurses,” the judge said. “And if GEO Group says we’re only going to get nine, how does the court enforce that against GEO Group if they’re not a party to the proceedings?”

She suggested the plaintiffs’ attorneys with Public Counsel may need to withdraw their bid for a preliminary injunction and refile it to address the deficiencies.

In their lawsuit, the detainees and immigrant rights organization argue that the conditions at the facility in the Mojave Desert violate the constitutional rights of the people detained there.

“Disease and illness are rampant, mold grows on the walls, and detained individuals are denied sufficient food, clean drinking water, proper medical care, and disability accommodations,” they claim. “The government’s abuses at Adelanto are a core part of its broader scheme to harass, intimidate, punish, and deport immigrants.”

Three people have died due to the “atrocious” conditions at the facility that houses about 2,000 detainees, the plaintiffs say.

ICE has countered that it routinely inspects Adelanto to make sure that GEO Group complies with the agency’s standards and the facility has done has well in these inspections “relative to conditions” including medical care and attention.

On the other hand, ICE acknowledged that its latest inspection of Adelanto resulted in the facility’s rating going down a notch, from “superior” to “good” in terms of its compliance with the agency’s standards.

Vanessa Young, an attorney for the plaintiffs, argued their request for a preliminary injunction was far from premature because they are suffering ongoing and imminent harm by being denied adequate medical care.

“Everyone there is subject to a substantial risk of harm,” Young said. “The medical system at Adelanto is broken, and it’s not safe to be sick there.”

While Pushkal Mishra, an attorney with the U.S. Justice Department, blamed GEO Group for any purported defects at the facility, the judge indicated she wasn’t willing to let ICE completely off the hook.

“If the court were to allow that argument to stand, the GEO Group could just do anything to these individuals and the government could just stick its head in the sand and say it’s not us,” Sykes observed. “I think you would agree that that’s not true — GEO Group couldn’t go about torturing someone and the government would say, ‘Oh well, it’s not us.”

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