by Chuck Sharman

On August 20, 2026, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed a lower court ruling declining to stay an injunction preventing federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from subjecting migrant detainees to unconstitutional conditions of confinement at its Adelanto Processing Center in California.

In its decision, the Court rejected the government’s attempt to foist blame on private prison giant The GEO Group, Inc., which operates the facility under contract from ICE. The Court also said that the rights violated were guaranteed to plaintiff detainees by the Fifth Amendment, rejecting the government’s argument that the injunction impermissibly interfered with its prerogative to “choose the place of detention for deportable aliens”—the basis of a 2022 Court ruling that voided application to the federal government of a state law banning privately contracted detention facilities.

Just how bad were the conditions at Adelanto? The injunction issued by the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California on July 16—which also certified a Class of Plaintiff detainees—ordered ICE to ensure that those confined at the lockup had “24-hour access to clean potable drinking water” and “[n]utritious and sanitary meals” with “a sufficient number of calories.” The government was also required to provide “[a]dequate sanitation,” including “[a]t a minimum” daily cleanings, freely available soap and hygiene products, plus prompt identification and remediation of mold. Additional provisions guaranteed detainees “[a]dequate privacy” while “using the … restroom or showering,” access to “clean, sanitary, and temperature-appropriate clothing [and] mattresses, pillows, and blankets,” as well as access to outdoor recreation spaces beyond the “mini-yard” for at least four hours daily, absent “documented security risks or reasons necessitating otherwise.”

Visitation privileges were also ordered during business hours without time limits or restrictions on physical contact “(e.g., hugging, holding hands, etc.).” ICE was further enjoined from canceling visits whenever a visitor needed to use the restroom. Defendants asked to stay the injunction while they appealed, but the district court denied that request—setting up this appeal.

It’s important to remember that detainees in ICE lockups face civil immigration proceedings and have not been criminally charged—making it all the more incredible that the government would subject them to such depraved conditions and then try to wiggle out of responsibility when called to task in court. But that’s exactly what Markwayne Mullin, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and his subordinate ICE officials tried to do when they appealed the denial of their request to stay the injunction order. First, they tried to throw GEO under the bus, claiming it alone was liable for conditions in a lockup. They then attempted to hide behind the Court’s earlier ruling that blocked California from restricting federally contracted private detention in the state.

The three-judge panel for the Court made short work of the first argument. Pointing to West v. Atkins, 487 U.S. 42 (1988), it said that “[e]ven if the Government does not run the facility day-to-day, it is ultimately responsible for ensuring that the conditions of confinement are constitutionally acceptable.” The panel reiterated options that the district court had suggested—that Defendants could “withhold payment or impose financial penalties on GEO to require it to meet its … obligations.” Failing that, “it could also choose to release or move Plaintiffs as needed to avoid constitutional violations,” the Court added, citing Disabled Rts. Action Comm. v. Las Vegas Events, Inc., 375 F.3d 861 (9th Cir. 2004).

The government’s second argument rested in part on Geo Grp., Inc. v. Newsom, 50 F.4th 745 (9th Cir. 2022) (en banc), the Court’s decision which voided the state’s effort to restrict the federal government from using privately contracted detention space, as PLN reported. [See: PLN, Apr. 2022, p.50.] Given that, Desfendants claimed, the lower court had run afoul of a June 2025 ruling by the Supreme Court of the U.S. that “[u]niversal injunctions likely exceed the equitable authority that Congress has given to federal courts.” See: Trump v. CASA, Inc., 606 U.S. 831 (2025). To this the Court replied that the only universal implications of the injunction were rights guaranteed under the Fifth Amendment—“an obligation that extends to all places where the Government may choose to detain people.”

Defendant government officials also failed to establish a likelihood of success in their appeal to the injunction, the Court declared, nor that the finding detainees were subjected to unconstitutional conditions was “clearly erroneous.” Since the government could also not show it would be “irreparably harmed”—or that Plaintiff detainees would not be—the Court found emergency relief unwarranted and refused to vacate dismissal of the request for a stay. See: L.T. v. United States Immigr. & Customs Enf’t, 2026 U.S. App. LEXIS 25373 (9th Cir.).

The government’s appeal to the injunction itself remains pending, and PLN will continue to update case developments. Plaintiff class members are represented by attorneys from Public Counsel, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, the Immigrant Defenders Law Center and Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP in Los Angeles. See: L.T. v. United States Immigr. & Customs Enf’t, USCA (9th Cir.), Case No. 26-4902.  

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