“Aquí no hay ningún derecho, aquí no hay vida, aquí no hay nada, aquí no hay libertad (There are no rights here, there is no life, there is nothing here, there is no liberty),” said Jose Luis Munoz-Zabala, a detainee at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, who spoke with L.A. TACO.
Detainees inside the Mojave Desert ICE facility declared a second hunger strike on November 2, according to Munoz-Zabala. There were 24 participants in pods A and C, ranging in age from 22 to 65.
He said the detainees who participated had not eaten for a week and had only water, or water with sugar, to sustain themselves. Participants were not leaving their cells when food was provided, he added.
Munoz-Zabala tells us that ICE staff had also threatened participants with transfers to facilities in Texas, Arizona, and Florida, and that transfer would mean their immigration processes would have to start over and harm their cases.
Following his conversation with L.A. TACO, Munoz-Zabala’s ability to message and video call through his tablet was blocked by the facility, which is operated by the private prison operator GEO Group.
Around noon that day, he said video calls on the tablets of people both participating and not participating in the hunger strike were being blocked. Calling through the facility phone was not affected. He believes the intent behind the indiscriminate blocking was to create problems between the detainees who are participating in the hunger strike and those who are not.
“Nosotros pedimos solamente la libertad o jueces de verdad, jueces de verdad que nos muestren la orden judicial que tenemos que estar aquí (We only ask for freedom or real judges, real judges to show us the judicial order that we have to be here),” said Munoz-Zabala about the reasons for the strike.
He said detainees participating in the hunger strike are demanding their release, not better conditions, but because they do not want to remain in the facility any longer.
He describes what has been done to him and his companions as “kidnapping” and says that what is occurring under the Trump Administration counts as “mass kidnapping.” When people are snatched and put into a room, it is, by definition, kidnapping, he said.
“Esta administración tan corrupta. Esto es una más dictador que mi país (this administration is so corrupt. This country is more of a dictatorship than my country),” Munoz-Zabala said.
Detainees inside the facility organized a hunger strike last May, with around 100 participants, according to reporting by L.A. TACO. Participants alleged retaliatory action from the facility staff, including placement in solitary confinement due to their participation in the hunger strike. Over the past year, hunger strikes have been held at immigration detention centers across the country from New Jersey to Texas.
Carlos Jurado, an immigration lawyer who represents Carlitos Ricardo Parias, who is being detained inside the facility, said his client alerted him about the hunger strike last Friday. His client said that about 70 detainees were participating at the time and had launched the hunger strike to protest food and water conditions, as well as a lack of adequate yard time.
When Jurado spoke with Parias on Monday, he said the strike had ended after a regional director from U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement visited the facility and heard their complaints.
In October, an independent monitor inspection, as part of an ongoing lawsuit, found “very bad” mold and larvae inside the Adelanto ICE facility—as well as 10 injunction categories listed as noncompliant and four as partially compliant, according to earlier reporting by L.A. TACO.
The facility has faced ongoing allegations and complaints of inhumane conditions, including larvae-infested drinking water and cockroaches inside the facility.
A delegation of congressional representatives conducted an unannounced visit to the facility in October, after GEO announced that it had sold the facility to the Department of Homeland Security for $950 million dollars. The congressional representatives had to wait 30 minutes before they were let in the facility, and said it appeared that the facility had just been cleaned before the tour started, according to LAist.
The Adelanto ICE Processing Center is one of the deadliest ICE detention facilities in the nation. Under the second Trump administration, there have been at least five deaths tied to the facility: those of Irvin Cruz-Nape, Jose Guadalupe Ramos-Solano, Alberto Gutierrez-Reyes, Ismael Ayala-Uribe, and Gabriel Garcia Aviles, according to reporting by L.A. TACO.
“ What they tell me is that ICE and GEO keep masking what's going on in there [in the Adelanto ICE Processing Center],” Jurado said. “So whenever they're gonna get a visit from someone, if it's a surprise visit, they won't let them in. And then when they do have a scheduled visit, then they'll just hide some things, clean things up, and treat them better that day.”
At almost 8 p.m. yesterday, Munoz-Zabala sent a message to L.A. TACO saying that messages and video calls were unblocked on the tablets.
“Le dijimos a Geo que es ICE los que nos tienen aquí detenidos sin una orden de un juez, no, Geo; ellos solo cumplen órdenes de ice, no de un juez ni nada, y las desbloquearon,” said Munoz-Zabala.
(We told the people from GEO that it is ICE who has us detained here without a warrant from a judge, not GEO; they only comply with the orders of ICE, not of a judge or anything, and they unblocked them [the tablets].”)
The GEO Group referred L.A. TACO to ICE for comment on the hunger strikes.
L.A. TACO reached out to The GEO Group, ICE, and DHS for comment; we will update this story if we hear back.
