The Brief

The immigration detention center closest to Los Angeles has placed dozens of people in solitary confinement each month since June, according to the most recent data from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In May 2025, the Adelanto ICE Processing Center had 14 people in isolation. When the Trump administration’s mass deportation effort revved up in June 2025, the number of detainees in solitary confinement there more than tripled. By July, it was 73; by August, 105.

The most recent data available shows that number went down slightly in January, to 74 people.

Ranked by percentage of the detainee population in “segregation,” as it is called at immigrant detention centers, Adelanto is among the U.S.’s top 10 facilities as of January, according to an LAist analysis of the most recent ICE data.

The data shows that of 229 ICE facilities that reported holding people since October 2024, between 50 and 60 usually reported putting at least one person in segregation in a given month. Out of the facilities that did place people in solitary confinement, Adelanto tended to do so less often than others until June 2025. (The facility held just a few people from October 2024 into January 2025.) When ICE’s presence increased in L.A. in June, the number of people sent to isolation in the facility also shot up — three to five times as many people have been isolated in Adelanto compared to the average facility that used any solitary confinement.

Since June, only two facilities have sent people to solitary confinement more times than Adelanto: one southwest of San Antonio, the other in central Pennsylvania.

Both of those facilities held twice the number of detainees as Adelanto on average from October 2024 through September 2025; but the number of people held in Adelanto since then has tripled, growing larger than either of the other facilities to hold an average of 1,800 people a day since October.

More on solitary confinement  

According to ICE, detainees may be placed in segregation for “disciplinary reasons,” or because of:

• “Serious mental or medical illness.”
• Conducting a hunger strike.
• Suicide watch.

The agency also says it might place detainees “who may be susceptible to harm [if left among the] general population due in part to how others interpret or assume their sexual orientation, or sexual presentation or expression.”

Not only is ICE holding more people in solitary confinement, but the agency's data also shows that detainees across the country are being isolated for longer periods of time. Detainees ICE considers part of the "vulnerable & special population" spent an average of about two weeks in solitary confinement each time they were isolated in 2022, when ICE first made the data available. By the end of 2025, the average stay in isolation had risen to more than seven weeks straight.

The GEO Group Inc., a private company that operates the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, has not responded to requests for comment.

How isolation can affect immigrant detainees  

UN human rights experts consider solitary confinement placements that last 15 days or more to be torture, though the U.S. Supreme Court has held that isolation doesn’t violate the Constitution.

The UN also maintains that solitary confinement should be prohibited for people “with mental or physical disabilities when their conditions would be exacerbated by such measures.”

In January, a coalition of immigrant rights groups filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of current detainees, calling for conditions at Adelanto to be improved. In addition to an unsanitary environment and a lack of healthy food and clean drinking water, detainees say solitary confinement is frequently used to punish those who speak out about conditions at the facility.

People held in immigrant detention centers are technically in “civil detention,” meaning that they are being detained to ensure their presence at hearings and compliance with immigration orders — not to serve criminal sentences.

According to the immigrant rights groups’ complaint, one detainee was placed in solitary confinement after complaining about the showers being broken. Another detainee said that, after asking a guard to “use more respectful language toward him, he was ridiculed, written up and given the middle finger by a guard who shouted, ‘Who the f--- do you think you are?’” Then, the detainee was placed in solitary confinement for 25 days.

Alvaro Huerta, the director of litigation and advocacy at the Immigrant Defenders Law Center who is representing detainees at Adelanto, told LAist that when people are placed in isolation at the facility, they’re typically in the same cell for 23 hours per day, unable to receive visits from their families.

For clients who are experiencing mental health challenges — especially those with suicidal thoughts — being placed in solitary confinement “can really exacerbate their condition,” he added.

In multiple statements to the media, ICE has said that the agency “is committed to ensuring that all those in custody reside in safe, secure and humane environments.” The agency has also said that detainees receive “comprehensive medical care” and that all detainees “receive medical, dental, and mental health intake screenings within 12 hours of arriving at each detention facility.”

Huerta called that “laughable.”

“We have countless examples of people who have said that this is not true, that they're not getting the medication that they're requesting, that they're not being seen for chronic conditions and emergency conditions,” he added. “And we know it's not true because 14 people have died in ICE custody this year alone.”

Southern California was built on radio.

"I can still hear the jingle KFWB News 98,” wrote  Taline in Los Feliz, during a recent conversation on LAist's daily news show, AirTalk, which airs on 89.3 FM. “I grew up hearing that in my dad's minivan on the way to and from school. It has a special place in my heart.”

Back in April, broadcast company Audacy announced KNX News — one of the last-remaining all-news FM stations — was leaving the FM dial where it had simulcast on 97.1 FM since 2021. The station, which is also one of the oldest in L.A., is not budging from 1070 AM where it has been on the air for more than 100 years. The move away from FM officially happened in May to make way for a new sports talk station, which Audacy officials called an area of growth for advertisers in today’s media landscape.

The move is one in a long line of changes for radio and a reminder that before podcasts, playlists and algorithms, many Southern Californians built their days around radio broadcasts.

Radio, a daily ritual

The construction of KNX

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Herman J. Schultheis

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Los Angeles Public Library

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Michael Jackson, a well-known KNX, personality

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Los Angeles Public Library

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Larry Mantle, now in his 41st year hosting AirTalk, remembers being a kid and dreaming of what it might be like to be behind the mic at one of these radio stations.

“ I grew up with KNX," he said. “My dream job as a kid was to be an anchor on KNX or KFWB, the two local all-news radio stations, 'cause there was nothing like hosting AirTalk that even existed at that point.”

Mantle opened up the phone lines on a recent show to hear from his fellow SoCal radio lovers about the shows they miss and the memories they have. Here's what they had to say:

A love for radio, then and now  

A pilot of KMPC's traffic alert helicopter pictured with his daughter and grandson.

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Los Angeles Public Library

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A 1963 picture of Valley State College (now Los Angeles Valley College) preparing to launch KVCM

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Larry Leach

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Los Angeles Public Library

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“When you'd walk down Hollywood Boulevard where the station was, you could hear it playing as you went down the street,” said  Olivia in Glendale about KLAC 570 with Al Jarvis.

 Larry in Yorba Linda shouted out KBCA Jazz for its 24-hour jazz, saying “When I first moved out here in '68 from Phoenix, which had like an hour a week, it was a real wonder.”

 Mark in Glassell Park emailed that he loves KCRW’s Henry Rollins, writing, “I used to bristle at his unique DJ persona, but over time, I came to love him and his crazy eclectic playlists. I find his knowledge in history and punk rock fascinating. He's a gem and a legend."

"I'd like to give a shout-out to all the DJs working at KXLU, the college station at Loyola Marymount University, said  Jeremy in Culver City in an email. “That station's been on the air for nearly 60 years. I believe it's one of the best examples of what's possible with radio."

"KFWB and KRLA back in the day when they were rock music stations —  Dr. Demento, one of my favorite on-air personalities, also had eclectic music taste," said  Carrie in Desert Edge.

“ Dr. Demento was must listening when I was a kid in junior high school at Le Conte Junior High in Hollywood,” Mantle added. “Every Sunday night on KMET, we would make sure we were listening to Dr. Demento and his funny records.”

The question remains…

An 11-year-old winning a car in a KMPC contest in 1963.

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Los Angeles Public Library

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Listener support is vital to any radio station, and it’s clear KNX has many lifelong fans. AirTalk listeners highlighted their support for household KNX names over the decades like Bill Keene, Melinda Lee, Mike Roy and Jackie Olden.

As KNX makes changes, many are watching closely and thinking about the future of radio.

Listeners like Tommy in La Quinta are left wondering if the radio dial will be the same…

“I’m a hardcore listener, but I don't know about casual listeners [and] if they'll tune to AM,” he said.

After months of hand-wringing, Los Angeles and LA28 have come to a tentative agreement on how Olympics organizers will reimburse the city for its expenses for the 2028 Summer Games.

According to the deal, the private Olympic organizing committee will pay upfront for the estimated cost of services that are not eligible for federal reimbursement, like trash pick-up and traffic control. Under another proposal, the city would also be able to tap an LA28 contingency fund if it isn't fully repaid by the federal government for policing costs at Olympic venues.

The agreement is nearly nine months overdue and still needs approval by Mayor Karen Bass and the City Council.

The 2028 Olympics are intended to be privately financed, and an existing city agreement with LA28 states that the Olympics organizers, not L.A., will pay for extra costs for public services in support of the Games. But L.A. is the financial back-stop for the Olympics, meaning if LA28 goes in the red, taxpayers will pick up the bill.

Beyond that, the city services agreement presents another area where L.A. could incur additional unexpected expenses for hosting the Games. L.A. City Councilmember Monica Rodriguez warned LA28 CEO Reynold Hoover earlier this year that a bad deal could "bankrupt" the city.

Jacie Prieto Lopez, an LA28 spokesperson, and Paul Krekorian, who leads the city's office of major events, said in statements that the freshly inked agreement would help deliver a fiscally responsible Games.

"Mayor Bass’ priority is that the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games be fiscally responsible, protect taxpayers, and benefit Angelenos for decades to come. This agreement helps deliver that commitment," Krekorian said.

But the contract between the two parties doesn't fully resolve one of the biggest areas of financial risk for the city: the enormous cost of security for an event as extensive and high-profile as the summer Olympics and Paralympics.

Organizers are counting on the federal government to pay for public safety at Olympic venues that are considered part of a "national special security event." That includes costs for LAPD staffing. LA28 has not included security costs in its $7.1 billion budget — a fact that City Attorney Hydee Feldstein Soto criticized earlier this year.

The federal government has so far allocated $1 billion for security costs for the Olympics. Exactly where those federal funds will go has not yet been determined, and there's no guarantee they will cover all of L.A.'s policing costs.

To address this, city officials have also proposed an amendment to a 2021 agreement between the city and LA28. That amendment would establish that if L.A. is not reimbursed by the federal government for all its eligible expenses, it could dip into LA28's contingency fund of $270 million before the private organizing committee could use those funds for any legacy projects.

But that bucket of money will first be used for any costs that Olympics organizers still owe if they run out of revenue — meaning if the Olympics don't turn a profit, the city's access to that money will depend on how much is left for the taking.

Civil rights attorney Connie Rice, who has been tracking the city's negotiations with LA28, told LAist the agreement was a "PR document" not a deal. She pointed out that if the federal government does not pay up for security spending as expected, L.A. could be in trouble.

" It leaves the taxpayers with a GoFundMe strategy," she said.

The city services agreement lays the groundwork for more negotiations between LA28 and the city. Each venue will require its own agreement, to be negotiated by July 1, 2027. Venues in the city of L.A. include Dodger Stadium, the L.A. Convention Center, L.A. Memorial Coliseum and the Venice Beach Boardwalk.

The City Council's ad-hoc committee on the 2028 Games will meet Tuesday afternoon to vote on the agreement.