by Lisa Eve Cheby
At a protest in downtown Los Angeles in 2018, we marched from city hall to the Metropolitan Detention Center. As the protest ended, taking a short cut through a pedestrian walkway in between what looked like two office buildings, we paused where a crowd chanted in a call and response with the detained immigrants tapping spoons on the narrow slits of the window. They are right here. “Can we ask to visit them? Talk to them? Tell them they are not forgotten?,” my friends and I wondered as we eventually made our way back to the metro station.
Shortly after, my pastor, Rev. Allison Mark, an active leader in Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice (CLUE) told me they were holding a training to visit people in ICE detention centers. A writer and friend, Desiree Zamorano, and I signed up. In a church social hall in Long Beach, a woman who had been detained in an ICE facility read a poem describing her capture and illegal imprisonment. Clergy and laity spoke about compassionate witnessing. We learned about the long history of the collaboration between the US government and private detention facilities, a practice that did not start with Trump, though it was accelerated under his first administration and expanded since his most recent term as president.
A few weeks later, on the hour and a half drive to Adelanto, our mentor, Andy, reviewed with us protocols: we will not be allowed to bring in anything with us; the wait may be long, so we can stow snacks and books in the lockers until we are called; remember our purpose is compassionate witnessing, our presence alone is a disruption to the systemic injustices.
I was paired with a young CLUE intern. She was Latina and dressed in black stretch pants and a plain burgundy blouse. At the security check point she was denied entry due to a ban on leggings. Another white woman, like me, also with only rudimentary Spanish, jumped in to go with me. She was with a different group from CLUE, and the person she was supposed to visit was not available or had been moved (this is also common). On our drive home we compiled our stories of inadequate food, of their inability to access their own savings to hire legal representation, of being relocated from all over the country to this remote desert prison where family cannot visit, of people who had committed no crimes, jailed and suffering.
CLUE connected us to the Adelanto Visitation & Advocacy Network (AVAN) who manages a database of people in detention centers who requested visits. In addition to bringing an hour of company to the detainees, we helped to connect them to support through CLUE, such as funding for bonds, transportation upon being released, housing, and legal aid. In our daily lives, our work became a witness to this system of oppression, often gone unnoticed by major news outlets, left to operate in obscurity. I wrote and published poems about this injustice. I shared with colleagues and my church community in conversations about our weekends. Several times people asked to go with us and some did. Others became involved through donating or other forms of support and aid. I am sure many told others, raising awareness.
In March 2020, like all our lives, this work was disrupted by the Covid19 pandemic, leading (as a hidden blessing), to many detainees being released. By October 2024, due to restrictions on taking in more detainees, in Adelanto there were only a handful of people left in the facility run by Geo Group. In June that order was lifted and in October, the contract was renewed despite the work of CLUE and other groups pushing for a full closure. When Trump took office and started his campaign for deportation, the facility quickly filled again and the government started building even more detention centers.
In the Fall of 2025, our group resumed visits to Adelanto under more restrictive protocols aimed to prohibit help from finding the people inside. On our first visit, unlike prior to the pandemic, the people we came to visit were in different parts of the facility. After our driver dropped two of us off, we had to call her to return, as the first change we learned of was that we could not use the lockers in the waiting room to store our purses and phones. When called, we lined up at the security gate, turned our pockets inside out. A woman who had on a plain brown hoodie in the highly air conditioned facility was told she could not wear anything with a hood. She left the building and returned in an unhooded shirt in time to be admitted with the group of visitors. This is another means by which the system works to keep imprisoned immigrants isolated from emotional, legal, or financial support.
After our visit, we then walked around the concertina wire topped fence to meet our friends, who we could not text or call. We waited outside – the small waiting room was overcrowded – we thought they were inside visiting. People of all ages sat on concrete in bits of shade on the 90 degree day. Thirsty and hungry, we waited 20 minutes for our friends to find us from the other facility, where the people they were visiting had been relocated. After stopping at the car for drinks and snacks and the next set of detainee’s names, we pressed the button to be buzzed into the first set of gates. When that gate locked behind us we had to be buzzed through the gates of the second perimeter of another 20 foot fence with concertina wiring. This facility only had about 10 seats for visitors, but was mostly empty. We were told that the facility had exceeded their allowance for visitors that day and were turned away.
When people talk about ICE raids, which many think have slowed because news coverage has slowed, I share this experience. I share this with my elected officials, and I share the stories, again and again, of innocent, law-abiding people seeking safety and asylum who are kept in these prisons without due process, without humane conditions.
As a university librarian, I am fortunate to have the time and means to drive two hours on a weekend to do these visits. Compassionate witnessing can happen in many ways. Sharing this story with someone who does not know or does not believe that people’s rights and lives are being violated in the name of immigration enforcement could be a way to witness. If you cannot travel to the detention centers, AVAN often needs bilingual volunteers for their hotline. The bond fund, especially under the current administration, needs constant replenishing. Writing letters to elected representatives to close these facilities is another way to witness.
Lisa Eve Cheby, poet, librarian, and daughter of Hungarian immigrants, has three chapbooks with Strikethrough Press.Her fourth chapbook, Planets Within, is available from Jamii Publications in Spring 2026. She was writer in Residence at SAFTA’s Firefly Farms and Dorland Mountain Arts. Visit lisacheby.wordpress.com for more about Lisa and her writing.