Workers at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, one of California’s largest immigrant detention facilities, are urging the federal government not to shut it down next year following discussions over its potential closure, according to the union that represents many of them.
Randy Erwin, president of the National Federation of Federal Employees, said a contract extension by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement gives the agency until Feb. 19 to decide the facility’s future.
“This is a major employer in that area,” Erwin said. “If you close a facility like that, it would be absolutely devastating to the local economy and devastating to these workers.”
A former state prison that began operating as an ICE detention center in San Bernardino County in 2011, Adelanto currently holds few detainees though it has a capacity of 1,940. Its population dropped dramatically in 2020 after an outbreak of COVID-19 cases tore through the facility, prompting a federal judge to order the release of detainees, and to prohibit new intakes and transfers.
Adelanto has also faced scrutiny from federal and state watchdogs over health and safety violations.
In 2021, the Environmental Protection Agency issued a warning to the GEO Group, the Florida-based private prison corporation that operates the facility, after finding that misuse of a chemical disinfectant spray caused detainees nosebleeds and nausea. A few years earlier, federal inspectors found nooses in cells and overuse of disciplinary segregation. Detainees reported waiting months to see a doctor.
ICE did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A GEO Group spokesman declined to comment, referring questions to ICE.
Advocates said closing Adelanto would be a victory for immigrants and the local community. A coalition of groups called Shut Down Adelanto has urged the facility’s closure for years.
Erwin voiced his concerns about a possible closure in a Nov. 29 letter to President Joe Biden, noting he learned that the “dramatic underutilization” of the facility could prompt its closure on Dec. 19, when the facility contract was up, which would lead to the termination of 350 union members just days before Christmas.
“This Administration considering the closure of the Adelanto ICE Processing Center at a time when capacity is so desperately needed in this area is genuinely perplexing and seemingly counter-intuitive,” he wrote, pointing to the Biden administration’s supplemental budget request in October to fund 12,500 more ICE beds.
Erwin argued that the request was inconsistent with a closure of the Adelanto facility, which is already paid for under existing appropriations.
Workers were happy to learn they would not immediately lose their jobs, Erwin said Tuesday, but they worry about what will happen long term.
A GEO Group economic impact analysis provided to the Los Angeles Times by Erwin shows the company spent more than $46 million in the city of Adelanto this year, including nearly $40 million in wages.
U.S. Rep. Jay Obernolte, R-Calif., wrote to ICE leadership on Oct. 3 urging them to seek relief from the 2020 court order so that intakes could resume. Though the population of detainees at Adelanto has dwindled, the facility has remained fully staffed and operational, he said.
“This striking example of exorbitant government waste and resource mismanagement is completely unacceptable,” he wrote, noting that Adelanto is the only detention facility in the country with an absolute intake prohibition related to COVID-19.
Carlos Castillo Mejia, 52, of El Salvador is one of the six people who remain detained at the Adelanto facility. Castillo Mejia, who has been detained there for nearly five years and is currently appealing his deportation at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, said Friday that the facility was operating as normal, with no indication from staff that it would close.
“I can’t understand how the government has thought to keep this facility open with such a minimal number of people, paying millions and millions,” Castillo Mejia said.
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