Little worms in water: ICE detainees in Adelanto say poor conditions persist despite court order

Carlitos Ricardo Parias had long complained to his family about the quality of drinking water at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center.

In a video call from the Southern California facility where he is detained, he finally showed them proof — a plastic bottle filled with drinking water and what appeared to be worm-like creatures.

Carlos Jurado, Parias’ immigration attorney, shared a copy of the video with The Times. In a phone interview, he said no one should drink something like it.

“The saddest thing is that they hunt us like animals on the streets and they don’t even treat us like animals in jails because no one would give that kind of water to their dog or cat,” Jurado said.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, however, denied any claim of poor conditions at the facility, saying it gets its water from the city of Adelanto.

“It is the same water used by residents and businesses in the area,” the spokesperson wrote in an email to The Times. “Our staff members at the facility also consume the water alongside illegal aliens. Employees and illegal aliens have access to this water supply 24/7 through water fountains and coolers.”

The spokesperson added that detainees at the center “are provided with proper meals, water, medical treatment, and have opportunities to communicate with their family members and lawyers.”

Immigrant rights attorneys say Parias’ video, taken earlier this week, is one of a number of complaints they’ve received from detainees at the facility despite a federal judge’s recent order to improve potable drinking water, food and medical care, among other issues.

“We’ve received reports that there have been some violations of the court order,” said Carl Bergquist, policy counsel with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights Los Angeles, or CHIRLA.

The immigrant rights’ nonprofit is one of several plaintiffs in a federal civil class action lawsuit against DHS and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement over conditions at the Mojave Desert detention center. Detainees have also launched hunger strikes, claiming subpar conditions.

Two weeks ago, U.S. District Judge Sunshine S. Sykes granted a renewed motion for a preliminary injunction in the lawsuit, ordering DHS and ICE to make improvements at the facility.

The DHS spokesperson blasted Sykes for her ruling.

“This is another example of a Biden-appointed activist judge trying to smear our ICE law enforcement,” the spokesperson wrote in an email to The Times.

In her order, Sykes barred the government from placing detainees in administrative segregation unless doing so was necessary to address a security threat to staff or the facility, or if a detainee requested it.

The order required that ICE develop and file, within 14 days, a remedial plan to implement comprehensive systems for medical care and disability accommodations.

To ensure compliance, she ordered ICE to provide access to two independent, third-party monitors to the facility. One monitor would focus on medical care and disability accommodations, and the other on general facility conditions. The agency and the plaintiffs were required to submit a list of qualified candidates.

Bergquist said ICE has met these two requirements, but still has not addressed more immediate issues such as water and food quality, as well as sanitation.

The federal government has filed an emergency request asking to put the ruling on hold while a higher court considers an appeal.

Parias, a TikTok streamer who was shot by federal immigration agents in South L.A. last year, said conditions at the facility haven’t improved. He said the facility’s staff does not clean the floors, dining tables or the microwave.

“Sometimes we do that ourselves,” he said in a phone interview with The Times.

On Tuesday night, he said he was sitting down, watching television when another detainee told him that the drinking water was contaminated with critters.

“We started looking around and we found them throughout: where we washed our hands and the showers,” he said, adding that the critters looked like gusanitos — little worms.

He said the small worm-like creatures he showed in the video came from inside a pair of 10-gallon coolers used by 80 people. He said that water is used for drinking, cooking and making coffee.

Larry Aguilar, 27, a detainee at the Adelanto facility, said in a phone interview that he was the one to tell Parias about the creatures in the water coolers.

“I was like, ‘Hey, look at this. This is what we’re drinking,’ ” he recalled.

Asked if any other conditions had improved at the facility following the federal court order, Aguilar said, “everything still remains the same.”

“The [drinking] water still takes a long time to get, the meals are still not the best — some of the meals come a little bit raw,” he said, adding staff are also rude to family who visit him.

In the last two months, he said, he and other detainees have not been allowed to go outside. Instead, he said, ICE has them go into a courtyard surrounded by four walls with an open ceiling.

He said staff haven’t told him or others why they’re not allowed to go out in the yard.

“All I really know is that we’ve been locked in here for the last two months without seeing the sun,” he said.