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While authorities with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement are reviewing the contract with the company that runs the Adelanto Detention Facility, activists are calling on local elected officials to permanently close the prison.
On Tuesday, activists with a group called Shutdown Adelanto Coalition gathered outside the prison. The coalition claims that Congressional Republicans are encouraging the Department of Homeland Security to keep the facility open.
In 2022, the Biden Administration listed the detention center as one of six facilities around the country that should be closed or downsized due to high costs, Reuters reports.
In September 2020, ICE was blocked from sending more detainees to Adelanto because of the COVID pandemic. That rule is still in place, meaning the center, which can hold up to 2,000 immigrants, is only housing a fraction of that.
Over the next 60 days, ICE will be reviewing its contract with the facility to either permanently close the site or remodel it.
Eddie Torres, policy coordinator with the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice, said a temporary closure is not what activists are calling for.
“That center should have shut down yesterday,” he added.
Earlier this year, The GEO Group, the company that owns the for-profit prison, was sued by current and former Adelanto detainees who claim toxic chemicals were sprayed at the facility that caused inmates to get sick.
“At this facility, there’s a long track record of abuses, of neglect, of horrible medical care, horrible dental care, and it has all been recorded even by DHS themselves,” Lisbeth Abeln, with the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice, said.
Torres believes that activists like himself and others are making headway and that now is the time to shut the facility down.
“The pressure is mounting with every single phone call, every single march, every single protest, every single action that has led us to this moment,” he said. “For the next 60 days, we’re going to continue to build on that pressure until we finally get that shutdown call from ICE and DHS.”
KTLA reached out to ICE for comment on the potential closure, the future of the remaining migrants and some of the allegations made at Tuesday’s rally but has yet to hear back.
Authorities at ICE said a decision about the facility’s future should be made by the middle of February.
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