Knock LA

On May 16, detainees at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center and Desert View Annex launched a hunger strike to protest against the violent, inhumane conditions inside the facilities. According to the Defend Migrants Alliance, the strikers are demanding bond reform, improved detention conditions, adequate medical and mental healthcare, nutritious food, accountability for deaths and disappearances within the facilities, and the right to organize. Most importantly, they are calling for the complete shutdown of Adelanto.   

The Adelanto Detention Center is no stranger to criticism for its violent treatment of detainees. Operated by GEO Group under contract with ICE, the facility holds nearly 2,000 migrants and immigrants. In December 2025, a 39-year-old man named Ismael Ayala-Uribe died in custody. One month later, 56-year-old Gabriel Garcia-Aviles also died in detention after one week in Adelanto. Medical neglect is commonplace within the center. For years detainees, attorneys, family members, and advocates have sounded the alarm on the horrific conditions within Adelanto that have led to psychological damage, physical health problems, and even deaths in custody. 

“The conditions that [the strikers] express have not changed since I was detained there during the first round of Trump’s administration in 2019,” said Bertie Hernandez, a member of the Shut Down Adelanto coalition, during a press conference on Tuesday May 19. “On the other hand, they have gotten worse.” 

“They don’t treat people like humans.”

The mistreatment and abuse cited by hunger strikers are not new issues, but advocates say the urgency has intensified and the facility is increasingly oppressive and cruel. Furthermore, organizers and family members argue that detainees’ willingness to risk their health through a hunger strike reflects the severity of the conditions inside Adelanto. 

“They’re willing to do this to raise their voice,” said Eva, the wife of a detainee during the press conference. “Even though their conditions are not good. They are afraid, they’re intimidated but they’re willing to go through it.” 

Eva described her husband, one of the strikers, as a “beautiful soul,” as someone selfless who always uplifts others. He spent five months in Adelanto before ICE moved him to the neighboring Desert View Annex. Due to an old hand injury, her husband experiences difficulty and discomfort climbing onto the top bunk assigned to him. When he requested that guards move him to a bottom bunk to avoid re-injury, the guards refused and stated that he had to make a request through the medical department. Her husband knew that the medical department does not respond to requests. He also knew better than to submit a complaint through the complaint box. Written complaints placed in the box are torn up by facility staff, according to Eva. 

Eva also added that medical neglect within Adelanto is appalling according to her husband’s experiences. 

“I doubt there is a doctor there from what my husband tells me,” she said in the press conference. “When he goes in for a cough, they give him two Tylenol, and they give him mints, Christmas mints. They give him two bags with salt so he can gargle. That is my grandma’s recipe, that is not medical attention.”

Luis’s experiences in Adelanto include the attempts by guards and staff to break solidarity amongst detainees. Collective punishment is a regular occurrence. 

“If any detainee does something, they all get punished across the board,” Eva recounted. “They don’t want us to come together.” 

Quốc Hoang, the relative of another detainee, spoke at the press conference about what his family member endured while inside Adelanto. When he first went to visit his family member Tom — a Vietnamese migrant who has since been released — he noted how abysmal conditions were. 

“[There was] water dripping off the wales. It was cold. It felt like a terrible place,” Hoang said during the press conference. “They don’t treat people like humans.” 

Hoang recounted the horrors that Tom and other detainees were subjected to when they sought medical care within Adelanto. 

“The worst part is that when you had to be sent to medical, you were chained,” Hoang said. “Chained to medical beds. Chained to yourself [by your arms and legs].” 

During Tom’s time in Adelanto, he experienced significant health problems from the food he was given. He recounted to Hoang that he received one microwavable burrito per day and only received meat either once a week or every other week. Tom was detained for six months before his eventual release. He is back home with his family, working three jobs to support his two children and his fiance’s five children. 

During Tuesday’s press conference, attorney Caleb Soto with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) said that in his weekly visits to Adelanto he watches people deteriorate before his eyes. In addition, structural legal changes by the Trump administration make release from Adelanto increasingly difficult. 

“The bond system, which is supposed to provide a legal mechanism for release, has been systematically dismantled,” Soto said. “The Trump administration declared that anyone who entered [the country] without papers was ineligible for bond.”

Soto added that while hundreds of courts have found that policy change to be unlawful, ICE continues to uphold it. Advocates reported that bond determinations are inconsistent, unjust, and extremely high. According to Soto, the average bond is now over $14,000 which is an inaccessible amount for most detainees and their families. 

A call for solidarity.

Hunger strikers told their loved ones that it is imperative to have the support of the general public as they undergo this risky direct action. One of their main requests was media attention so that their message and their sacrifice could be heard and recognized. Family members said detainees are so isolated from the outside world that many feel abandoned in their struggle. 

“I spoke to my husband yesterday,” Eva said during the press conference. “He has to convince people [inside] that we are actually out there.”

On the other side of the country, detained migrants and immigrants are also on hunger strike. Hundreds of detainees at the Delaney Hall ICE jail in Newark, New Jersey declared that they will be striking until their demands are met, which include better quality food, ventilation in the facility and medical care – and for their immigration cases to proceed. Delany Hall is a site of frequent anti-ICE protests and has been since May 2025 when the Trump administration began detaining migrants and immigrants there. However, escalations occurred Tuesday May 26 as protesters clashed with ICE agents. Agents pepper-sprayed and tasered activists after an umbrella was thrown at them and continued to spar with the crowd over the following hours. Protesters have remained outside the detention center since, rallying and cheering in support of the strikers. 

Markwayne Mullin, the new Secretary of Homeland Security for the Trump administration, erroneously stated on social media that there is “no hunger strike at Delaney Hall” and “no subprime conditions.”

Back inside Adelanto, the hunger strikers expressed a commitment to continuing the direct action until the facility meets their demands.

“My husband has been there seven months,” said Eva in the press conference on the 19th. “He is adamant about shutting down Adelanto. Nobody deserves to be treated that way.” 

Another family member of a detained man from El Salvador said in the press conference that she remains hopeful the protest will succeed and detainees will soon be reunited with their loved ones. 

“I have faith that, above all, everyone in there will be liberated and will be able to be with their families again,” she said. “These are very tough times, but God is good.”