The Adelanto ICE Processing Center in San Bernardino County, the largest immigrant detention facility in the country, is set to expand.
The Adelanto City Council deadlocked twice early Thursday on votes to approve or kill a plan by the privately-held GEO Group to annex a building that would add 750 beds to a detention facility that currently can hold 1,940 people. City attorney Lloyd Pilchen said the lack of resolution by the council means an earlier ruling by Adelanto’s planning commission will stand and GEO Group can move forward with the expansion.
The push to add beds to the center comes at a time the coronavirus pandemic has limited its use to just 40% of its capacity.
Opponents plan to fight GEO’s plan.
“We will not allow Adelanto or any city to expand immigration detention without properly engaging its own constituents,” said Christina Fialho, an attorney and co-founder and executive director of Freedom for Immigrants.
“You can be sure we will be pursuing any and all causes of legal action against the city.”
Councilwoman Stevevonna Evans questioned Pilchen’s conclusion that the planning commission’s approval now stands. Evans, who wanted to overturn the commission’s decision, asked the city attorney to come back with a report at the next meeting explaining his position.
Freedom for Immigrants and other advocacy groups asked the council to overturn the Planning Commission’s February ruling, which passed 4-1. Evans and Adelanto Councilman Gerardo Hernandez voted to overturn the commission’s approval, but Mayor Gabriel Reyes and Councilwoman Joy Jeanette voted in favor of expansion. Councilman Ed Camargo recused himself, citing a conflict of interest.
Among those arguing against expansion were representatives from numerous faith, immigrant and civil rights organizations, including the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice, Resilience Orange County, Long Beach Immigrant Rights Coalition and the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.
“People who are detained in this facility come from all over. That’s why you see a vested interest in this issue,” Grisel Ruiz, an attorney with the San Francisco-based Immigrant Legal Resource Center, said after the meeting.
Many voiced opposition to immigrant detention altogether, saying there are more humane options.
“Immigrant detention destroys families,” the Rev. Deborah Lee, executive director of the Interfaith Movement for Human Integrity, told the council.
Several members of the Nikkei Progressives in Little Tokyo likened the immigrant detention facility and others like it to the internment of Japanese Americans.
“It was wrong then and it’s wrong now,” said Jan Tokumaru.
A handful of Inland Empire residents and GEO employees called in to support the expansion. Some said the detention facility protects Americans from illegal immigration and contributes to the local economy.
Anti-illegal immigration advocate Raul Rodriguez Jr. told the council that anyone calling for the closure of the facility is “un-American”.
Immigrant-rights attorneys and advocates focused much of their arguments on how GEO went about securing its expansion. They said the city has violated a 2018 state law that seeks to limit new immigrant detention contracts.
Instead, the deal was brokered behind closed doors, without offering the public the required legal notice, they said.
“The city of Adelanto has clearly violated California state law in its most recent attempt to safeguard corporate greed over the interests of its community members,” Fialho said.
Immigrant-rights advocates also expressed repeated concerns about conditions at the facility, which has come under fire in recent years from various organizations and the California Attorney General’s office.
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