Ismael Ayala-Uribe was four years old when his family brought him to the U.S. from Mexico 35 years ago.

He had been in the country legally as a “dreamer," a reference to those in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. He lost that legal protection after a 2015 conviction for driving under the influence.

He still kept a job, working at the same car wash for 15 years. ICE arrested him there this past August and placed him in a for-profit lockup located in Adelanto, Calif., run by The GEO Group company under a $2 billion government contract.

In the short time he was in ICE custody, he developed an abscess on his left buttock.

“He said he was in pain,” his mother Lucia Uribe said, who claims he did not get adequate medical care at Adelanto. “He said they didn't take care of him. He asked them to take care of him, but they didn’t.”

The skin infection worsened over two weeks while Ayala-Uribe remained detained at Adelanto.

“When I went to see him I didn't see him looking well,” Lucia Uribe said, describing her visit to Adelanto on Sept. 20. “He was already pale. He said, ‘I can't take it anymore, I just can't.’ I tell my son, hold on.”

The following day, a doctor at Adelanto sent him to a hospital for emergency care but it was too late. Ayala-Uribe died on Sept. 22 at age 39.

A partial autopsy report obtained by Scripps News lists the abscess as the main cause of death, noting it had been present for days.

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Dr. Judy Melinek, a forensic pathologist, reviewed the autopsy findings for Scripps News.

"An abscess of this size develops over time,” Melinek wrote in an email. “Had Mr. Uribe been taken to receive medical attention when he first started complaining of pain, fever, and chills, he would have been examined. Doctors would have noticed the skin changes and if an abscess was present, it would have been drained and he would have been given antibiotics. Thus, his death would have most likely been averted.”

Ayala-Uribe is one of four detainees who've died at Adelanto since September.

Attorney Jesus Arias represents the families of three of those immigrants.

“They were sent to the same place to die, Adelanto,” Arias said. “Because of the failures that are occurring in that place, they all died.”

There were warnings about conditions at Adelanto issued shortly after it reopened last summer and weeks before Ayala-Uribe's death, according to government documents reviewed by Scripps News.

A report by ICE’s Office of Detention Oversight knocked Adelanto’s rating from “superior” down to “good,” noting “the facility reopened in June 2025, going from approximately 400 detainees to 1,800 overnight. The sudden influx may have contributed to the rise in deficiencies.”

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A separate review of Adelanto by California’s attorney general in July found "insufficient staffing” and “failures to attend to urgent medical needs.”

“Everything indicated Adelanto was a ticking timebomb,” the attorney general wrote in a legal filing.

“We shouldn't be worried that a person being detained for immigration administrative proceedings is going to die as a result of that,” Arias said. “This is not normal.”

Dozens of detainees still held at Adelanto have shared their own claims about lack of medical care, filing testimonials in a federal court case that seeks to require GEO Group to improve conditions at Adelanto.

One migrant said he had been denied access to medications for skin cancer.

In another testimonial, an immigrant said he had been waiting a month for an MRI to check on a spinal tumor.

U.S. District Judge Sunshine Sykes has a set a hearing for May 22. The Justice Department says it will move to have the lawsuit dismissed.

Both the Department of Homeland Security and The GEO Group defend the care of detainees at Adelanto.

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A GEO Group statement sent to Scripps News said in part, “The support services GEO provides include around-the-clock access to medical care ... At locations where GEO provides health care services, individuals are provided with access to teams of medical professionals including physicians, nurses, dentists, psychologists, and psychiatrists.”

Ayala-Uribe’s family has filed a wrongful death lawsuit.

“For me, it was medical negligence and lack of attention they didn’t give him,” Ayala-Uribe's mother said. “Can you imagine how I feel now? Every day he would talk to me on the phone. It was a loss that affected us a lot.”