Rafael Vela Gonzalez was dragged down the concrete steps of his Silver Lake home and pushed to the ground by ICE agents in early January, a moment captured on video that went viral. Nearly eight months later, the 66-year-old's health has rapidly declined inside the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, and his partner of more than 30 years, 81-year-old Vivian Lee Arguello, says she now fears he will die in custody.
Vela Gonzalez, who arrived in the United States from El Salvador at age 19 and has lived here since he was a teenager, was hospitalized for nearly a week in June 2026 for acute bronchitis and sepsis, receiving treatment from June 17 through June 22, according to the Los Angeles Times. He now has oozing sores, swollen feet and difficulty walking, and he is receiving ongoing treatment for psoriasis after previously complaining of stomach pain for weeks, the paper reports.
For decades, Vela Gonzalez worked as a handyman and served as Arguello's primary caretaker. The paper notes he has few blood relatives in the United States. Ashley Cabrera said Vela Gonzalez's family feared he would become ill and die in detention, a fear that has only sharpened as his hospitalizations have piled up.
A Green Card Lost, Then a Doorstep Arrest
Vela Gonzalez received a temporary green card after applying for amnesty, but he lost the document in 2023 and applied to replace it. The Department of Homeland Security denied that replacement-card application in April 2025, and per the department, Vela Gonzalez was detained during a targeted operation and will remain in custody pending his removal proceedings. Video footage shows ICE agents handcuffing him during the January arrest outside his home.
His attorney, Barbara Darnell, appealed a bond decision in August 2026 after a court deemed Vela Gonzalez a flight risk in July and denied his request for bond that same month. About 30 community members gathered for a vigil ten days after his detention, and a GoFundMe campaign has since raised nearly $50,000 to support the couple.
The upheaval has reshaped Arguello's life in ways beyond worry. She now lives at her niece's apartment in Lynwood and has had to rehome the couple's dog, Chico, who was sent to a foster family in March 2026 and permanently rehomed in August. Arguello says she plans to sell her house, and she hopes Vela Gonzalez will not be deported and will instead return home, where the couple plans to marry after her divorce from her former husband and eventually start a contracting business together.
Court-Ordered Reforms Stalled on Appeal
Vela Gonzalez's declining condition unfolds against a fraught legal backdrop at Adelanto. Federal Judge Sunshine S. Sykes ordered sweeping changes at the facility in July 2026, mandating reforms to medical care, sanitation, food, recreation, disability accommodations and visitation. But the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals granted an administrative stay in August 2026 pausing that injunction, according to the Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse, leaving mandatory reforms frozen while appellate courts deliberate.
That injunction grew out of the federal class-action lawsuit L.T. v. ICE, originally filed in January 2026 by four detained individuals alongside the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights over allegations of unpotable water, inadequate meals and denied medical treatment. Adelanto's population had surged from 7 to 1,570 individuals while physician and detention staffing lagged significantly behind, according to a California Department of Justice review.
That same state review, detailed by CalMatters, found that six detainees died in California ICE facilities between September 2025 and March 2026 — the highest count since state inspections began in 2017 — with four of those deaths occurring at Adelanto. Nationally, ICE custody deaths increased to triple the prior year's total, with 33 people dying in ICE custody in 2025 according to agency data, and research published in JAMA found the annualized mortality rate in detention reached 88.9 deaths per 100,000 detainees in early fiscal year 2026, a 22-year high per MedPage Today.
A Death That Mirrors the Family's Fears
The family's dread has a specific precedent inside the same facility. On March 25, 2026, 52-year-old detainee Jose Guadalupe Ramos-Solano died after collapsing in his cell at Adelanto, with an autopsy confirming COVID-19 pneumonia amid claims from his family that staff ignored his medical distress, as reported by Reason Magazine. Detention centers nationwide have been subject to similar health and safety violation complaints even as an August 2026 report by the Project on Government Oversight, cited by CalMatters, found that facilities receiving ICE's highest internal rating of superior tripled since 2024 as recorded violations dropped 68%.
Access to outside specialty care has also narrowed. In October 2025, the Department of Homeland Security terminated its contract with the Veterans Health Administration, which had previously provided off-site oncology, dialysis and acute specialty treatment to ICE detainees nationwide. The Department of Homeland Security has said immigrants receive comprehensive medical care when entering ICE custody.
Vela Gonzalez's doorstep arrest also fits a broader enforcement pattern: community-based at-large arrests increased 600% year-over-year, and roughly 74% of individuals in ICE custody nationwide have no criminal convictions, according to federal detention data. In August 2026, the California Legislature passed a bill requiring public disclosure of 911 emergency call logs from civil immigrant detention centers statewide following reporting on delayed emergency response times.
Hoodline has previously reported on detainee hunger strikes at Adelanto and on a related wrongful death trial against GEO Group, the private operator that runs the facility. For now, Arguello waits in Lynwood, hoping the man who cared for her for three decades comes home before his health worsens further.
