Letters to the Editor: This reader visited the Adelanto detention center. These were the stories she heard

To the editor: Last week, I went to Adelanto immigration detention center (“A former DACA recipient died in ICE custody. Did officials ignore his pleas for help?,” Sept. 23). Before COVID hit, I went regularly to hear people’s stories and let them know someone was really listening. Now, with a group from the Adelanto Visitation and Advocacy Network, I went back. I spent a couple of hours with two men there. This is what they told me:

They get outside two to three times a week in the desert heat. They get a banana once in a while, but no fresh fruit. They got minimal medical help after a while. They were forbidden from cleaning the site for $1 a day, so they have no money to phone anyone and the common room for inmates is dirty. They cried when I left.

One of the men I spoke with is a barber from Cuba who was living in Miami, sent here by Immigration and Customs Enforcement months ago. He has a hearing coming up, but no lawyer. He has no criminal record at all, just a visa date request. The other man, who is Nigerian, has been held there for two years and has no lawyer.

Still, I made them laugh when an old white lady they had never seen before popped in. They were astonished. The two-year prisoner never had a visitor outside of his ex-wife and daughter. We talked about our families and what friends we had. Both men are careful about who they hang out with but mostly, they said, the detainees just cry at night. They’re not fighting in the sweaty, crowded dorm in the high desert.

They asked if I would come back. I told them I’d try, but I hoped they wouldn’t be there. I promised to tell their story and that my friends and I would pray for them.

Nan Cano, Westlake Village