LOS ANGELES — About two weeks after arriving at the Adelanto immigration detention center, Ismael Ayala-Uribe complained that he felt sick.

At first, the 39-year-old Mexican immigrant said he had a cough, his younger brother Jose said. Then a fever.

By Thursday, he was “shaking and complaining of pain in his rear,” and a staff member flagged his condition as potentially life-threatening, according to internal emails written by an intake lieutenant and obtained by The Times. He was rushed to a detention medical center in a wheelchair.

But an hour and a half later, medical staffers cleared Ayala-Uribe to go back to his dorm. He was not taken to hospital and scheduled for surgery for an abscess on his buttock until three days later.

By 2:32 a.m. Monday morning, he was dead.

Ismael Ayala-Uribe’s death in federal immigration custody spotlights longstanding concerns about medical care inside Adelanto, one of the largest federal immigration detention centers in California. It also raises broader questions about whether immigration detention centers across the nation are equipped to house the surge of people taken into custody since President Trump ratcheted up his mass deportation agenda.

Ayala-Uribe came to the U.S. when he was about 4 years old and had previously been protected from deportation under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. His renewal application was denied nearly a decade ago after he was convicted of driving under the influence.

“I’m angry, sad,” Jose said. “My parents are pretty much broken.”

Months ago, critics, including some staffers who work inside, told The Times that Adelanto was unsafe and unsanitary. They said the facility, which is run by the for-profit corrections firm The GEO Group, was unprepared to handle a large increase in the number of detainees due to a shortage of experienced staffers.

An Adelanto staff member said Wednesday that conditions had improved with the hiring of more staffers to serve a population of about 1,795 detainees.

But the staffer, who requested anonymity because they did not want to lose their job, also said that some of the new hires lacked experience — a factor that could have played a role in Ayala-Uribe’s death.

Ayala-Uribe is the 14th person to die in federal immigration custody since January. By comparison, 11 died in custody in 2024, seven in 2023, three in 2022 and five in 2021. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the number in 2020 was higher, at 18. Before that, there were nine deaths in 2019 and nine deaths in 2018.

GEO Group, which operates Adelanto and three other California immigration detention facilities, declined to comment and referred The Times to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE, said in a statement that federal immigration agencies are committed to ensuring the safety of people in their custody.

“Comprehensive medical care is provided from the moment individuals arrive and throughout the entirety of their stay,” the statement said, noting that everyone in ICE custody has access to 24-hour medical emergency care. “At no time during detention is a detained illegal alien denied emergent care.”

Ayala-Uribe, who grew up in Orange County and attended Westminster High School, was arrested by Border Patrol agents on Aug. 17 during a raid at the Fountain Valley Auto Wash, where he had worked for about 15 years. On Aug. 22, he was transferred to Adelanto, in the San Bernardino County desert.

According to ICE, federal officials declined to renew Ayala-Uribe’s DACA protection, which is granted to some immigrants who came to the U.S. as children, in 2016, after he was convicted of driving under the influence. He was convicted in Orange County of a second DUI in June 2019 and sentenced to 120 days in jail, plus five years’ probation, according to court records.

Ismael had been pretty healthy, his brother Jose said, with blood pressure on the high side but, as far as he knew, no other medical problems.

But not long after Ismael arrived at Adelanto, Jose said, he got sick.

“It started small with the cough, and then he started getting fevers,” Jose said. “They only were giving him, like, Tylenol and really, nothing else.”

As Ismael’s health declined, his family kept checking on his status, but ICE provided little information.

“They wouldn’t tell us anything,” Jose said. “Eventually, we just got the word that he was in their infirmary, and that’s all they would tell us.”

On Saturday, Ismael’s parents visited him at Adelanto.

“He was telling them that he was sick, he wasn’t feeling well,” Jose said. “He’s tried asking for help, but they wouldn’t really do anything.”

A fellow detainee called Ismael’s parents around midnight Sunday, Jose said, “saying that he started shaking really bad, and he was finally sent into the infirmary because they called the guards.”

The family heard nothing more until Huntington Beach police officers knocked on the door of their Westminster home on Monday.

Ismael was dead, they said.

Ayala-Uribe’s death comes amid intense scrutiny of federal immigration facilities. Shortly before ICE issued a news release about his death Tuesday, two Democratic U.S. senators raised concerns about the rise in deaths in ICE custody.

In July, Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) released a probe into allegations of human rights violations at immigration detention centers, including dozens of reports of physical and sexual abuse, as well as mistreatment of pregnant women and children. The Department of Homeland Security rejected the senator’s allegations in a statement.

In June, U.S. Rep. Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park) toured Adelanto with four other Democratic members of Congress from California amid concern over the increasing number of detainees and deteriorating conditions inside.

Some detainees told the lawmakers that they had been held for 10 days without a change of clothes, underwear or towels, Chu said. Others said they had been denied access to a telephone to speak to loved ones and lawyers.

According to an internal email written by a GEO intake lieutenant and obtained by The Times, an officer at Adelanto initiated a code blue medical emergency alert Thursday at 2:06 p.m. due to Ismael “shaking and complaining of pain in his rear.”

A code blue alert typically signifies a life-threatening medical emergency, such as cardiac arrest or respiratory issues.

“Responding officers and medical arrived carefully escorting detainee from the 2nd level floor down to a wheel chair and be escorted to medical where he will be medical assessed with a further evaluation,” the email said.

About one hour and 29 minutes later, at 3:45 p.m., GEO medical staff cleared Ayala-Uribe to return to his unit, according to another internal email.

According to a news release from ICE, an on-call medical provider examined Ayala-Uribe on Thursday and prescribed medication for him.

Three days later, he was sent to the Victor Valley Global Medical Center to further evaluate an “abscess on his buttock” and was scheduled to undergo surgery for it, the news release said.

“Ayala was also hypertensive and displayed abnormal tachycardia,” the release said. “At 1:48 a.m. the [medical center] declared Ayala unresponsive and initiated lifesaving measures. He was declared deceased at 2:32 a.m. by medical staff.”

The Adelanto staff member who raised concerns about the experience level of staffers told The Times that a detainee with an abscess is normally taken to the hospital right away.

“We take them out,” the staffer said. “So I don’t know why they didn’t go to the hospital.”

The Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice, a collective of more than 35 organizations across the Inland Empire, called for a full and independent report into Ayala-Uribe’s death.

“This for-profit detention center has a long record of abuse, neglect, and inadequate medical care leading to preventable suffering and deaths,” the coalition said. “No one should profit from immigrant incarceration, and no family should endure loss due to neglect.”

Immigration officials said Ayala-Uribe’s cause of death is under investigation. ICE is required by law to publicly release reports on in-custody deaths within 90 days.

To raise money for his funeral, Ayala-Uribe’s family will be selling tamales, carnitas and pozole on Saturday.

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(Los Angeles Times staff writer Nathan Solis contributed to this report.)

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