"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.
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.
“They denied her help and they told her that they couldn’t do anything, and that she had to put the bone back in place herself after screaming and crying. And that’s what continues to be at Adelanto,” noted Torres.
Immigrants in detention, meanwhile, are denied options for release on bond back to their communities. The bond system has been “systematically dismantled,” said Soto. “The Trump administration declared that anyone who entered without papers was ineligible for bond, regardless of their record, their family, their ties to the community.”
A February ruling ostensibly ended the Trump administration’s efforts to deny bond to immigrant detainees, though, according to Soto, “ICE and the immigration judges there at Adelanto kept applying it anyway.”
Ultimately community advocates want Adelanto and other detention facilities to be shut down.
GEO Group—along with private prison firm CoreCivic—is reporting significant profits from 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.
“We will continue to add our voices to … shut down this place,” Torres said. “And not only this place, but all these horrific immigration centers that should not exist.”
Li Lovett
"Hunger Strikers Protest Conditions at Adelanto ICE Detention Center" | ACoM
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