Column: Environmental impact, carceral economies, immigrant justice and faith

For the past 12 years, my work as a faith-rooted organizer focused on helping immigrants who were detained and to bring awareness about the immigrant detention centers, specifically the immigration detention center in the city of Adelanto, which is the largest in California with the capacity to hold 2,690 persons. This city and its region tell a story of environmental impact, carceral economies and the intersections with mass incarceration, immigrant justice and faith.

What exactly is environmental impact? According to Google, "environmental impact" refers to the change or effect that human activities have on the natural environment, including air, water, land, plants, animals and climate, potentially causing harm or disruption to ecosystems through actions like pollution, deforestation or resource depletion; essentially, it's the consequence of human actions on the environment, whether positive or negative. And there are many negative impacts on this beautiful region. 

The High Desert region in Southern California is home to diverse ecosystems of plants and animals. It is a remote place with several two-lane roads that take you to the small towns of Victorville and Adelanto, a beautiful 75-mile car ride from the metropolitan area of Los Angeles. The drive through this desert region can be quite scenic and most spectacular when there is snow on the top of the surrounding mountains.

The degradation to the region began in 1941 when George Air Force Base opened in Victorville. The base expanded over 4,100 acres, with 250 buildings, with over 4,000 military personnel working there. The government placed the base on standby after WWII, the personnel moving on.  In 1992, the base was decommissioned, leaving the land polluted with jet fuel, solvents and pesticides that seeped into two aquifers of this area. This contaminated land is now a place for distribution warehouses, where decommissioned airplanes sit and a 900-acre federal prison expanding the private prison industry.  

The local government knew that the waterways were polluted and harmful, which was the case for this region even before the prisons. The surrounding land soon became the perfect location for the for-profit corporation GEO, a prison management company that lobbies for the expansion of detention centers. This prison-interest corporation profits from building jails, prisons and detention facilities in rural towns far removed from public scrutiny.  With their narrative of job creation and public safety, the City of Adelanto gave way to the immigration detention facility that continued to grow to a capacity of incarcerating 2,690 immigrant persons within two facilities located next to each other. 

In 2013, I began to share about this place where immigrants were being detained for long periods of time. They would be detained for months unfairly, denied state attorney representation due to immigration being a federal issue. Making a phone call from inside the facility was costly.  Bonds would be required to release the persons and when released they would be made to wear an ankle GPS monitor system.  At that time, people did not believe this was happening in the U.S. so I began to hold prayer services right across from this immigration detention center. 

I created a visitation group where people of diverse faiths would visit people detained and would be present at their court hearings. In this way, we accompanied them and would be their connection to outside resources. One of the many findings was the added exploitation taking place. 

Many of the people detained were forced to work for one dollar a day so they could pay for their toiletries, make a telephone call to their loved ones or to buy instant soup. The instant soup would be their only change to the daily bland menu. While visiting, we heard stories of systemic racism, indifference and medical neglect.  We comforted many and prayed for several people who died while detained in this facility including Martin Vargas, whose death GEO tried to cover up.

In 2020, the Adelanto immigration facilities were emptied after a federal court found that conditions of confinement there were inconsistent with contemporary standards of human decency. 2023 saw many layoffs of guards. In 2024, the facility held only two individuals while the government paid for 1,455 empty beds due to mandates in their contract with Homeland Security. Long-time advocates committed to shutting down Adelanto are now pushing for this facility to close and stop the wasteful spending of taxpayer money and begin what they call a just transition. 

The work continues with the support of courageous leaders who have been impacted by detention, formerly-incarcerated immigrants and other organizations whose vision and mission is to stop all forms of harm to people and the environment. For months, advocates got together with local people to talk about what a thriving community looks like. Local people dream of having reliable public transportation, a local community college and a much-needed trauma hospital.  With a California budget initiative, Healthy Economies Adapting to Last (HEAL), communities can choose to divest in detention centers and instead invest in high-road jobs and build a sustainable economy.  

Environmental impact, carceral economies and immigrant justice is affecting everyone in this region. Documented history and data show that prisons have a detrimental effect on the health of prison towns.  Unfortunately, immigrants continue to be expendable as we can all attest at this moment in time, with nationwide ICE raids taking place in various cities. With all of this happening, one can not deny that corporate profit, greed and quotas continue to be more important for corporations like GEO, as well as to the United States government.