This story discusses suicide and other acts of self-harm.
If you or anyone you know is in crisis and need immediate help, call the Suicide Prevention Lifeline by dialing 988 or click here to chat with someone online.
This story was produced as part of the USC Center for Health Journalism’s California Health Equity Fellowship.
Before 33-year-old Sergo Gambarian was detained by federal immigration agents, he said, he had already tried taking his life four times.
He was diagnosed with anxiety and depression after being sent to the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, and his history of suicide attempts was noted, according to hundreds of medical documents obtained by this publication.
In July, he was a day into disciplinary solitary confinement after allegedly throwing a tray at a kitchen worker. Later that day, he would hang a noose in his cell, records show. About a dozen guards burst in and detained him, he said, before he could hurt himself.
Gambarian said he would have tried killing himself had they not found the noose.
“You can’t wait for humanity here,” he said.
This publication reviewed over three hundred 911 call audio files from the Adelanto ICE detention centers from January 1, 2024 through the end of June 2026 from the Consolidated Fire Agencies Joint Powers Authority, a dispatch and emergency medical services agency serving the High Desert region of San Bernardino County.
At least six suicide attempts occurred inside the Adelanto ICE Processing Center within six months, between October 2025 and April 2026, the calls show. Like Gambarian, another detained person had tried to kill himself while in solitary confinement.
Since January 2025, at least 57 people have died in ICE detention. At least 10 of those died by suicide between January 2025 and May 2026.
Those suicide deaths are higher than what has traditionally been seen at detention centers. During the 8 year period between 2008-2016 there were 6 total suicides in ICE detention. Then between 2017-2020 there were 9 suicides with 6 in 2020 during the start of the COVID pandemic. Then from 2021 to 2024 there were 2 total suicides. The rate of suicides per 100,000 people were at their highest in both 2020 and now in 2026 at 17.7 and 18, respectively, according to an investigation by the Associated Press.
The unprecedented number of suicides shows that authorities are failing to properly look after the tens of thousands of people taken by the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation campaign, experts said. Detention facility staff members ignored signs of distress, delayed mental health treatment and failed to watch detained people who were already thought of as vulnerable, and allowed them to have access to materials they could use to hurt themselves.
“This is the ripple effect of ICE not giving people the proper care,” Esmeralda Santos, the lead organizer with the Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice, told this publication.
Gambarian’s attorney, Mher Cholakhyan, begged for help for his client, who had fled Russia to avoid fighting in the war in Ukraine, emails show. Though the lawyer said Gambarian was suicidal, he said his repeated pleas drew no response from immigration officials.
After the guards found the noose, records show, Gambarian was transferred to a suicide-resistant cell and placed on suicide watch. At one point he allegedly smashed a doctor’s computer monitor and phone and pushed his desk at him. The doctor ordered a 5150 psychiatric hold on Gambarian and he was sent to Anaheim Global Medical Center for nine days, according to medical records.
When he was returned to Adelanto, his medical records and Adelanto officials confirm, he was again placed in disciplinary solitary confinement – this time for 32 days straight.
Solitary confinement and suicide risks
Medical experts say solitary confinement is associated with a higher risk of suicide, with documented effects including psychotic and aggressive symptoms.
It could also lead to an increased need for psychiatric hospitalization, especially when the confinement was used as a disciplinary measure, according to Dr. Sanjay Basu, an internal medicine physician who recently coauthored an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association on deaths in ICE detention centers.
“Solitary confinement is especially harmful for people with preexisting mental illness, where isolation, forced idleness, and lack of intensive therapeutic mental health services exacerbate underlying conditions,” he said.
People in ICE detention have little control over their environment, and being in solitary confinement can exacerbate that feeling, leading to heightened anxiety, agitation, and deterioration, said Dr. Katherine Peeler, an assistant pediatrics professor at Harvard Medical School and medical advisor with Physicians for Human Rights. She has researched conditions inside detention centers for about eight years.
“What happens is that the agitation itself is perceived as poor behavior. It’s perceived as even more rational to keep them in solitary and for longer because ‘look how poor this person’s behaving. They’re begging on the door, they’re like yelling at us for water’ or whatever the thing is. And so it’s not recognized as a consequence of solitary environment, but instead as a reason to keep them in it longer,” Peeler said.
The United Nations considers solitary confinement lasting 15 consecutive days or longer to be torture, but the Supreme Court has maintained that solitary confinement doesn’t violate the Constitution and that it can serve a legitimate role in prisons.
Keeping suicidal detained people in an isolated room is in line with ICE’s Performance Based National Detention Standards.
“All suicidal detainees placed in an isolated confinement setting will receive continuous one-to-one monitoring, welfare checks at least every 8 hours conducted by clinical staff, and daily mental health treatment by a qualified clinician,” the standards state.
The Department of Homeland Security maintains that suicides in detention are extremely rare under the Trump administration.
“When there are signs of a detainee self-harming, staff abides by strict prevention and intervention protocol to ensure the detainee’s health and well-being is protected. ICE requires annual suicide prevention training and provides mental health service to detainees,” an unnamed DHS spokesperson said in response to questions about this publication’s findings.
DHS also said that a detained person may be placed in “segregated housing” for health concerns, including medical and mental illness, physical disability, and suicide risk.
“Any incident involving self-harm is taken with the utmost seriousness,” the statement said. “The safety and well-being of those in our care is our highest priority, and we treat suicide prevention as a fundamental responsibility, responding with the respect and compassion every individual deserves.”
GEO Group, the private entity contracted to run Adelanto, said in a statement, “As it relates to significant self-harm and suicide prevention and intervention, we train all staff on GEO’s suicide prevention and intervention program, which is clearly defined in our policies and procedures; and adheres to ICE’s (standards).”
Roughly 85 miles northeast of Los Angeles, the small town of Adelanto has two ICE detention centers: the Adelanto ICE Processing Center and the next-door Desert View Annex. Combined, the facilities can hold 2,690 people. Both are owned and operated by private-prison company GEO Group through contracts.
The Adelanto facilities have faced widespread scrutiny from politicians, watchdog groups, and immigrant rights advocates for years over the substandard conditions people are allegedly subjected to.
In January, a federal lawsuit was filed by two law firms and a Los Angeles nonprofit against federal authorities and agencies, alleging inhumane conditions inside the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, such as inadequate spoiled food, dirty water, medical neglect, and other issues.
A federal judge ordered widespread immediate improvements to conditions inside Adelanto in mid-July, including 24-hour access to clean potable drinking water, nutritious foods, and free soap. Weeks later, claims of contaminated drinking water surfaced.
At least five deaths in ICE custody have been connected to the Adelanto ICE facilities since the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second term, four of which are allegedly associated with substandard medical care, according to the CA Attorney General’s 2026 report on immigration detention in the state.
Sharp uptick in 911 calls
Five of the six suicide attempts at Adelanto happened during a roughly one-month period between March and April. Two occurred on April 30.
“In a functioning detention mental health system, by the second or third attempt in three weeks, you’d expect escalated monitoring, psychiatric evaluation close to time, ligature restrictions, and open housing for high-risk individuals, not segregation,” Dr. Basu said.
April saw a sharp uptick in overall medical emergency 911 calls, with 36 calls recorded that month in both Adelanto facilities compared to a monthly average of roughly 12 calls in the prior three months.
An average of 1,957 people were detained inside the Adelanto facilities in April, while an average of 2,064 people were detained in the previous three months.
“During March and April, the facility experienced a higher volume of patients arriving with acute medical conditions that required urgent evaluation and treatment. As a result, emergency medical services were contacted more frequently to ensure timely access to a higher level of care when clinically indicated,” said an unnamed DHS spokesperson in response to questions about the increase of calls.
Spikes in emergency calls could show an increase in isolated incidents, but often they’re a reflection of a system’s performance, said Dr. Joseph Bick, who recently retired after spending 32 years leading medical and healthcare services within the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
“In well‑run systems, most problems are identified early through routine screening, timely access to clinicians, and consistent monitoring of people with known vulnerabilities. When those elements are working, emergencies tend to be the exception.
“When those systems are strained because of staffing gaps, delays in access to care, inconsistent mental‑health follow‑up, or communication breakdowns, emergencies become the default pathway for people to get attention,” Dr. Bick said.
“Many of (my clients inside Adelanto) have expressed to me their willingness to end their lives, to cease their suffering in detention because their detention has reminded them of their torture and persecution in the past,” Los Angeles-based immigration attorney Kim Luu-Ng said.
Medical and detention staffing levels inside the Adelanto ICE facilities failed to meet the needs of the drastic influx of people in the summer of 2025, according to the CA AG report on ICE detention centers.
“In interviews conducted by Cal DOJ’s staff during the July 2025 site visit, detainees reported that they were unable to access requested medical appointments and did not receive necessary and timely medical treatment, even for emergency medical care,” the report states.
Afraid to return to Russia
Gambarian was detained after cutting off his ankle monitor that immigration officials put on him as a supervision tool. He has no criminal record. The tracking device was embarrassing, he said, and he didn’t want to be seen in it when meeting with work clients. He is being held in ICE detention while his immigration case plays out in court.
As of late September, Gambarian remains in Adelanto. He was no longer in solitary confinement at the time of publication.
He said he wanted his story to be told.
After fleeing Russia, Gambarian said, he legally entered the U.S. with his wife after presenting themselves for asylum at a port of entry along the Mexican border in 2023 using the CBP One app, a mobile application launched by U.S. Customs and Border Protection in 2020 to enhance border crossing functions, including asylum appointments. The Trump administration rebranded the app to the CBP Home app in 2025 to assist in self-deportations.
“I am very afraid of returning to Russia,” Gambarian said. “I fled from arrest and from the poor conditions in Russia here, and so that I could receive help here, (and) be granted asylum …. I feel like I’ve fallen into a trap.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
See our database of 911 calls:
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Methodology & sourcing
The 911 calls reviewed for this story were obtained from ConFire, a dispatch and emergency medical services agency serving the High Desert region of San Bernardino County through a contract with the San Bernardino County Fire Protection District, according to records obtained through a public records request. Audio files prior to 2024 were not available due to the ConFire’s retention policy, a representative said.
ConFire did not provide a categorical breakdown of the 911 calls. The Southern California News Group listened to and logged each call into a category based on the reported medical emergency.
Call types were categorized into groupings based on the stated type of emergency. Call types that most frequently occurred were given their own category. Calls for heart attacks, abnormal EKG readings, and other heart issues were logged under “heart-related medical emergencies.” Other call types were put into an “other medical emergency” group.
The calls classified under “self-harm” were logged as such because the 911 caller explicitly stated someone had self-harmed or the actions fit into the category defined by various articles and medical literature.
Calls recorded as “suicide attempt” were done so because either the 911 caller clearly stated that the person had attempted suicide or the actions align with what Columbia’s Suicide Severity Rating Scale describes as a “highly lethal act that is clearly not an accident.” Additionally, two editors reviewed the data and determined that the calls were for acts of attempted suicide.
In instances where one 911 call was made for two people, we logged that call twice to account for the two different medical emergencies.
Sources: ConFire and the Deportation Data Project. 911 data compilation and analysis by Ryanne Mena. Charts and interactive by Daniel Aitken.