Last September, masked ICE (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents suddenly surrounded Luis’s vehicle – he had stopped at a gas station early that morning en route to his job as a tree trimmer in Santa Monica.
“You just go blank, like you’re in shock – it all happened so fast,” recalled Luis about the moment he was apprehended near his home in the Inland Empire. “Thousands and thousands of thoughts rush through your mind at once: ‘What’s going to happen? What am I going to do?’”
What followed was a living nightmare for Luis and Eva, his wife of 15 years. The abrupt separation, constant worry about their safety and their unknown future severely impacted the couple’s mental health. Eva suffered a nervous breakdown that she said nearly cost her her life, and Luis started declining the moment he was placed in detention.
As the days he spent separated from his wife, his grown children and other loved ones turned into weeks and then months, the fraught conditions and daily stress caused him to feel hopeless.
“When you get to Adelanto … you start to sink down mentally,” he said.
Luis suffered extreme anxiety and fell into a deep depression. He didn’t know if he would be deported to his native Mexico, a country the 50 year old hasn’t lived in since his late teens.
Luis spent nearly 10 harrowing months at the ICE Processing Center’s Desert View Annex in Adelanto, California, which is managed by the GEO Group, one of the largest private, for-profit prison companies in the world. While there, Luis was subjected to horrific living conditions alongside approximately 1,500 other detainees.
“There are thousands of people at Adelanto and every day people are coming in [and] leaving,” he said. Some leave through legal pathways, like Luis, but many others end up getting deported.
Due to his lengthy detention, Luis was released and returned home to his family in mid-July, because of a successful habeas corpus petition. Without a window for deportation, the government must justify why detention should continue or they must release the individual.
However, for Luis, it may be a temporary reprieve. He still has a difficult process ahead to navigate his right to stay in this country.
The Impact on Family
When Eva heard that Luis had been detained by ICE, she was consumed with overwhelming fear. She also felt frustrated and powerless – emotions that spiraled into a mental health crisis.
“I was really shaken up when someone from the community came to my door and said, ‘Your husband’s truck is at the gas station. ICE just took him. I felt like I was going to faint,” she said. “They pulled me back up and said, ‘No, no, it’s going to be okay; we’re going to help him.’
“But later that night, after everyone had left – after my [grown] daughters had gone home – I was obviously left alone and started having panic attacks,” she added, describing her sense of despair. “I took some sleeping pills because I couldn’t sleep … and, honestly, I tried to take my own life.”
Thankfully, Eva survived, though she never received adequate care during the week she spent recovering in a crisis center. In fact, she never even saw a psychologist until her fourth day there.
But despite her trauma, after Eva was discharged, her sole focus became trying to find a lawyer who could help bring her husband home – like so many others with detained relatives.
Detention and Deportation Numbers
Michelle Arkin of Granada Hills, a member of the grassroots organization No Concentration Camps California (No Camps CA), worked with Defend Migrants Alliance (DMA) to assist Luis and Eva. Unfortunately, said Arkin, they are among thousands of families – including adults and kids – who are being torn apart under the current administration’s punitive immigration policies.
As of mid-July – the most recent data released by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – there are 65,765 people currently in ICE detention nationwide and 356,389 individuals have been deported thus far in 2026. In addition, more than 6,200 children have been detained during President Donald Trump’s second term, according to the Deportation Data Project.
“There are so many different aspects of this that are so traumatizing to people,” said Arkin. “Finding our humanity and being the kind of people we want to be [to help them] is critically important to their survival, because what they’re going through is so devastating and isolating.”
“People Are Suffering a Lot”
Luis witnessed and experienced much of that suffering firsthand. After he was taken into custody Sept. 27, 2025, he was transported to Adelanto, where he initially shared a small cell with three other men. They were locked in every night and forced to use the same toilet, he said.
“There was no privacy at all,” said Luis. But worse, the hygiene issues were “really disgusting.”
For meals, they provided scant portions of food with “no taste and no nutrition,” which was served in unsanitary conditions, said Luis. Numerous reports out of Adelanto have described detainees receiving moldy food, foul-tasting water and even bottles of water containing worms.
The only way to get enough edible food – and sufficient personal hygiene products, like soap and deodorant – is to have loved ones open a commissary account, so the detainees can purchase microwaveable noodle cups, bags of chips and other snacks and items they need, he said. Having commissary funds was also a lifeline that made it possible to make phone calls. Detainees are not allowed to receive calls.
“But it’s difficult, because everything is so much more expensive there,” he said.
Despite the abysmal conditions at Adelanto, Luis said he knows how lucky he was to have a wife and adult kids who could put money into his account, lived close enough to visit him every week and were doing everything they could to help him get out. Many others are not that fortunate.
“There were people with even more problems and greater needs than [mine], because they had small children they couldn’t take care of, and their families were losing their apartments, losing their homes,” said Luis. “And,” he added, “there are people who have no one” – no one to visit them, because they’re being detained far from relatives, and no one to support them financially.
Detainees can be moved from one facility to another, even transferred to other states, making it more isolating and difficult for them to receive legal and family support.
When the commissary packages arrived and were delivered to detainees weekly, Luis recalled the immense sadness and helplessness he felt seeing so many people who received nothing at all.
“There were also some very elderly people. It seemed so unjust to me – like this one old man who could barely walk,” he recounted. “When it was time to eat, he would walk slowly, holding on to the wall to steady himself, on the way to the dining area. I remember telling them, ‘Why don’t you let this man go home? He can’t even walk – where is he going to run away to?’”
The medical care at the facility was atrocious – essentially nonexistent, said Luis. To see a doctor, they had to fill out a form, and then wait days or even weeks before finally being seen.
“There were people who would lie down on the floor in front of the guard and in front of the cameras to get their attention because they needed medicine,” he said. “They had no choice. That way, the supervisor could see what was happening and they would take them to the doctor.”
After Luis was transferred to a different building at Adelanto, he was no longer confined to a tiny cell at night, but then slept in a large room with rows of beds “all crammed together, with a bed every two feet,” he said. Adelanto has nearly 2,000 beds. They were only allowed to go outside once every other day for one hour – and wherever they were, he said they were always closely monitored by guards.
“The people are suffering a lot. People were frequently reaching their breaking point, causing conflicts and arguments over the slightest thing,” he said. “That place really puts people’s stress, depression and sadness to the test.”
Luis said he witnessed at least two attempted suicides. He saw one man he knew as Singh who used a bed sheet, which he wrapped and tightened around his neck to try to hang himself.
“Another person used some kind of razor blade to cut himself over and over, trying to slit his wrists,” he said. “It was all out of desperation, and there is so much desperation in that place.”
Seeking Legal Remedies
Since being released from Adelanto last month, Luis must wear an ankle monitor and attend regular immigration check-ins. He also applied for a work permit, so he can help support his wife – who works full time despite having multiple health issues – but the future is still uncertain.
As Luis waits for his next immigration hearing to be scheduled, he remains in legal limbo as an undocumented resident, despite having lived in the U.S. for more than 30 years. The approved habeas corpus that secured his release only pertained to his prolonged government detention, explained Arkin, noting that “it’s against the law for them to hold people for more than 90 days.”
In the current political climate, it’s more difficult than ever, can take decades and be a great financial expense to become a lawful permanent resident, get a green card or to become a full U.S. citizen. There are backlogs of cases and individual circumstances are not treated equally, especially for applicants who are from countries with high immigration rates into the U.S.
Luis and Eva didn’t want to disclose the details about their pending efforts to seek legal remedies that would allow Luis to remain legally in the U.S. But they are trying to stay hopeful.
“It’s hard,” said Eva. “I often reach out to the community, to people like Michelle [Arkin]. They’re always checking in on us … and looking for different ways to help us. I knew there were good people in the world, but you don’t usually see them. These people are angels to me.”
They’ve helped connect Eva and Luis with a reputable immigration lawyer, after the first one they hired charged them $14,000 cash up front and “never even did anything for us,” said Eva.
Even small acts of kindness can make a big difference, said Luis. While he was at Adelanto, Luis and other detainees received letters from people they had never met before, expressing positive and encouraging messages – and those kind, unexpected words always lifted his spirits.
“I’ll always be grateful for all the support we’ve received,” said Luis, his voice full of emotion.
Although he has much to contend with, he thinks of those who are there without support.
“Now I want to give back to someone else, like [the community] did for me. I want to help the people who are still [at Adelanto], because there are so many people who are still suffering.”
Diana Martinez contributed to this article.
To help support Eva and Luis, a GoFundMe account has been set up for the couple at:
www.gofundme.com/f/support-luis-who-was-kidnapped-by-ice-detained-at-adelanto.
For a step-by-step guide on how to locate adults or minors detained by ICE, go to:
www.immdef.org/_files/ugd/c2ad78_1a21190e1fb040fbb7c824229bdbea2b.pdf.
For vetted referrals to immigration lawyers, go to: www.chirla.org/what-we-do/programs-initiatives/legal-services.
To learn more about No Concentration Camps California, go to: www.nocampsca.com.
For information about Defend Migrants Alliance, go to: www.instagram.com/defendmigrantsalliance.