California lawmakers who toured a detention facility where people arrested in sweeping immigration raids at workplaces across the Los Angeles area are being held, have reported deteriorating conditions, including a lack of access to clean clothes and towels.
A group of US representatives of southern California districts arrived in Adelanto on Tuesday, a city in the high desert east of Los Angeles, to tour the facility and find constituents who had been detained in the raids over the past week.
People held in detention told congress members that “they did not have a change of clothes for 10 days, nor a change of underwear and they had the same towel that they had to use over and over again”, said Judy Chu, a congressperson who represents the San Gabriel Valley east of LA. The bathrooms inside didn’t look clean, she said – and detainees reported they decided to clean the showers themselves so that they could maintain sanitary conditions.
At a press conference held outside the Adelanto facility, lawmakers were joined by the families of people arrested in the workplace raids. Chu said that those in detention have had difficulties calling their family members and lawyers.
Lucero Garcia, whose uncle was detained on 9 June, outside of a car wash in Santa Ana where he worked, said she had tried for days to locate him in the online detention database before she finally found out he had been transferred to Adelanto.
“He was arrested by Ice without reason or warning,” she said.
Yurien Contreras, whose father Mario Romero, was arrested in a raid at the clothing wholesaler Ambiance Apparel, said she had rushed over to the warehouse when she realized Ice officers had arrived there. She saw him being walked out of the warehouse. “Watching my father be taken away and be chained by the hands, feet, and waist,” she said. “It was a very traumatic experience that affected us. But little did we know, it was only the beginning of inhumane treatment our families would endure.”
Chu had previously been denied entry into Adelanto. “Right in front of our eyes, they closed that fence over there, and they put chains around it and locks,” Chu told the Guardian, gesturing at the chain-link barrier around the detention center. “We had signs that said we were members of Congress, and they still would not open it.”
Chu circled back to the facility on Tuesday along with representatives Mark Takano, Luz Rivas, Linda Sanchez and Sydney Kamlager-Dove. The representatives said they were not able to get answers on how many of the detainees had been arrested in the recent raids in LA.
“Let me tell you, we have had laundromats, we have had churches, we have had elementary schools, we have had small stores raided by FBI, and Homeland Security in cooperation with [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] snatching folks,” Kamlager-Dove said outside Adelanto’s gates. It was unclear why certain people had been arrested and placed in detention and those at Adelanto believed they had been profiled and arrested based on their appearance and race.
Among the people they encountered in Adelanto was a young man who was part of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (Daca) program, which grants legal status to people who arrived in the US as children. He had been detained because some of his paperwork was out of date, Chu said. Representatives also met with asylum seekers and people who had been detained at immigration court.
The emerging details about the conditions detainees are being held in comes as southern California continues to reel from widespread raids at workplaces, churches and other spaces, which have sparked widespread protests. On Tuesday, Karen Bass, the Los Angeles mayor, lifted a curfew in downtown that was first imposed in response to clashes with police and vandalism amid protests against Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown.
The curfew imposed 10 June provided “successful crime prevention and suppression efforts” and protected stores, restaurants, businesses and residents from people engaging in vandalism, Bass, a Democrat, said.
When the curfew was imposed, Bass said the city “reached a tipping point” after 23 businesses were broken into and robbed, which was blamed on agitators looking to cause trouble.
The curfew covered a relatively tiny slice of the sprawling city – a 1-sq-mile (2.5 sq km) section of downtown that includes the area where protests happened.
Last week, Trump ordered the deployment of roughly 4,000 national guard troops and 700 marines to the second-largest US city following protests over his stepped-up enforcement of immigration laws.
The Los Angeles district attorney is also bringing additional criminal charges against people in connection with the protests of Ice raids.
Nathan Hochman, the district attorney, last week said he was prosecuting more than a dozen people for a number of alleged offenses, including assaulting officers and vandalism. He unveiled new cases against five people at a Tuesday press conference, including a 23-year-old charged with felony assault of an officer and accused of throwing fireworks at Los Angeles police department motor officers. A 30-year-old was charged with felony possession of a firearm and allegedly violating the curfew. And a 44-year-old was accused of pointing a laser at an LAPD helicopter.
The state charges come as US prosecutors are continuing to bring federal cases against demonstrators, including some cases in which civil rights advocates and defense attorneys said the US Department of Justice appears to be criminalizing free speech. Hochman said the people he was prosecuting were part of a “smaller group” who did a “huge disservice to the legitimate protesters”. LAPD has also faced widespread scrutiny over its use of force against demonstrators and journalists, including incidents caught on camera of officers firing rubber bullets at close range.
The Associated Press contributed reporting
