Adelanto ICE Facility Triples Solitary Confinement Use as Trump's Mass Deportation Machine Ramps Up

The Adelanto ICE Processing Center has transformed into a solitary confinement factory since Trump's mass deportation effort kicked into high gear last summer, new federal data reveals.

In May 2025, the facility held 14 people in isolation. By June, when the administration's deportation machine revved up, that number more than tripled. It hit 73 in July and 105 in August. The most recent data from January 2026 shows 74 people locked in solitary confinement at the facility closest to Los Angeles.

An LAist analysis of ICE data shows Adelanto now ranks among the top 10 facilities nationwide for the percentage of its detainee population kept in "segregation," as the agency euphemistically calls it. Since June, only two other facilities have used solitary confinement more frequently: one southwest of San Antonio and another in central Pennsylvania. Both of those facilities held twice as many detainees as Adelanto on average from October 2024 through September 2025. But Adelanto's population has since tripled to an average of 1,800 people per day, making it larger than either facility while maintaining its aggressive isolation practices.

The pattern is clear: when ICE ramped up enforcement in Los Angeles, the use of solitary confinement at Adelanto exploded. Before June, the facility used isolation less often than most other detention centers. Now it is isolating detainees three to five times more frequently than the average facility that uses any solitary confinement at all.

Longer Stays in Isolation

The Trump administration is not just locking up more people in solitary confinement. It is keeping them there longer.

ICE's own data shows that detainees the agency classifies as part of the "vulnerable and special population" spent an average of about two weeks in isolation each time they were segregated in 2022, when the agency first made this data public. By the end of 2025, that average had ballooned to more than seven weeks straight.

UN human rights experts consider solitary confinement lasting 15 days or more to be torture. The UN also maintains that isolation should be prohibited entirely for people with mental or physical disabilities when such conditions would worsen their health. The U.S. Supreme Court, however, has held that isolation does not violate the Constitution.

These are not criminal prisoners serving sentences. People in immigration detention are in "civil detention," meaning they are being held to ensure they show up for hearings and comply with immigration orders. They have not been convicted of crimes.

Retaliation for Speaking Out

A federal lawsuit filed in January by a coalition of immigrant rights groups paints a disturbing picture of life inside Adelanto. The complaint, filed on behalf of current detainees, alleges that solitary confinement is routinely used to punish people who complain about conditions at the facility.

One detainee was thrown into isolation after complaining that the showers were broken. Another asked a guard to use more respectful language and was ridiculed, written up, and given the middle finger by a guard who shouted, "Who the f--- do you think you are?" That detainee spent the next 25 days in solitary confinement.

The lawsuit also describes an unsanitary environment, a lack of healthy food and clean drinking water, and systemic failures to provide adequate medical care.

Alvaro Huerta, director of litigation and advocacy at the Immigrant Defenders Law Center, which is representing detainees at Adelanto, told LAist that people placed in isolation typically spend 23 hours per day in the same cell, cut off from family visits.

For clients experiencing mental health challenges, especially those with suicidal thoughts, solitary confinement "can really exacerbate their condition," Huerta said.

ICE's Empty Promises

ICE has repeatedly claimed in public statements that the agency "is committed to ensuring that all those in custody reside in safe, secure and humane environments." The agency insists that detainees receive "comprehensive medical care" and that all detainees "receive medical, dental, and mental health intake screenings within 12 hours of arriving at each detention facility."

Huerta called that claim "laughable."

"We have countless examples of people who have said that this is not true, that they are not getting the medication that they are requesting, that they are not being seen for chronic conditions and emergency conditions," he said. "And we know it is not true because 14 people have died in ICE custody this year alone."

The Adelanto facility is operated by The GEO Group Inc., a private prison company that has not responded to requests for comment.

A System Built on Cruelty

ICE claims it places detainees in segregation for "disciplinary reasons" or to protect them from harm. The agency says it might isolate people "who may be susceptible to harm [if left among the] general population due in part to how others interpret or assume their sexual orientation, or sexual presentation or expression."

But the data and detainee accounts tell a different story. This is a system that uses isolation as a tool of control and punishment, not protection. It is a system that locks vulnerable people in cells for 23 hours a day, cuts them off from their families, and keeps them there for weeks on end while calling it something other than torture.

Out of 229 ICE facilities that reported holding people since October 2024, between 50 and 60 typically reported using solitary confinement in any given month. That means most facilities manage to operate without routinely isolating detainees. Adelanto has made a different choice.

The Trump administration's mass deportation agenda has turned Adelanto into a laboratory for cruelty. The numbers speak for themselves: a sevenfold increase in solitary confinement in just three months, isolation periods stretching to seven weeks, and a growing population of people held in conditions the international community recognizes as torture.

This is not immigration enforcement. This is systematic abuse dressed up in bureaucratic language and operated for profit by a private prison company. And it is happening in our backyard.