A lawsuit enforcing the Freedom of Information Act and demanding that ICE produce documents about the use of pesticides at the Adelanto ICE Detention Center.
On August 16, 2024, Plaintiff Social Justice Legal Foundation filed a Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) request asking ICE to produce public records about the use of a pesticide called HDQ Neutral at the Adelanto ICE Detention Center. ICE never responded, prompting us to file a lawsuit on March 7, 2025, seeking to require ICE to comply with its obligations under FOIA. Nearly one year later, ICE has yet to search for, let alone produce, many of the documents in our requests. The court has now set a schedule for summary judgment and trial by mid-2026.
The government works for the people, and FOIA lawsuits are critical for exposing how the government is doing its job and challenging systemic secrecy within certain agencies. When the government breaks the law by failing to produce records to the public, FOIA litigation holds the government accountable and forces disclosure of those public records.
Most people will never enter a detention center, but these facilities are a large part of the government’s deportation agenda and have received unprecedented amounts of funding—most of it to private contractors—in the last year. The Trial Impact Project’s lawsuit furthers the goal of transparency, because we all deserve to know what our government is doing with our tax dollars and in our name.
