Lawyers for a man held at a California immigration detention center have shared a video showing what looks like tiny worms swimming in his drinking water. This comes just weeks after a federal judge ordered the agency running the facility to make sure detainees have "24-hour access to clean, potable drinking water" (potable means safe to drink).

The video comes from a video call between Carlitos Ricardo Parias, a Los Angeles man held for months at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center north-east of LA, and a relative. His lawyer, Margaret Hellerstein, shared the clip with the Guardian on Thursday, saying it had been filmed that same week. The Guardian

The short, grainy video shows Parias holding a plastic bottle filled with water in which small creatures appear to be swimming. Parias, in a statement shared by Hellerstein, called the contents "worms" or some kind of "larvae." No one has independently confirmed exactly what the organisms are. Parias said the contaminated water came from jugs handed out by facility staff for drinking, and that he poured the water with the creatures into a bottle to save it as evidence. The Guardian

The footage has spread widely among immigration advocates and attorneys in recent days. Lawyers involved in the class-action lawsuit (a lawsuit filed on behalf of a large group of people with similar complaints) over conditions at Adelanto had seen the video but told the Guardian they had not received direct accounts from other detained people about the specific creatures shown. The exact source of the water in the footage remains unclear, as does how widely the contaminated water was distributed within the facility. The Guardian

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, the agency that oversees immigration detention, said in an email that the Adelanto facility gets its water from the city of Adelanto's public water supply, the same water used by local residents and businesses. DHS did not answer repeated questions about the video itself. Geo Group, the private company that runs the facility under a contract with ICE, issued a statement after the story was published saying the facility does not run its own water system, that water comes from the local public system, and that it is regularly tested. Geo Group did not respond to questions before publication. The Guardian

The video comes amid an ongoing legal battle. Weeks before the footage appeared, a federal judge ordered ICE to make sure people held at Adelanto had "24-hour access to clean, potable drinking water." That ruling came in response to a class-action lawsuit challenging what the people who filed it described as "dangerous conditions" at the facility, including claims that detained people were denied enough food, clean drinking water, and proper medical care. The Guardian

US Representative Judy Chu said that two weeks before her public remarks, a federal judge had ordered ICE to immediately improve conditions at Adelanto, yet detainees were still being forced to drink contaminated water. Rep. Judy Chu

Parias had long complained to his family about the quality of drinking water at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, according to an earlier report. Spokesman-Review

Parias is a TikTok creator known as Richard LA who received national attention after being shot by an ICE agent in October and subsequently charged with assault. A federal judge dismissed the assault charge, and Parias was transferred to ICE custody, where he is now facing removal proceedings (the legal process by which a person may be deported from the United States). The Guardian

The broader context here matters for understanding what may happen next. The Adelanto facility has faced sustained legal scrutiny, and the judge's order specifically requiring clean drinking water now reads as a direct rebuke of the conditions Parias captured on video. The footage, whatever the organisms in the bottle turn out to be, is likely to be used as evidence in the ongoing lawsuit. The gap between the court's order and the conditions shown in the video raises questions about whether anyone is actually checking that these facilities follow court orders, especially when they are run by private companies like Geo Group, whose public statements have focused on the public water source rather than on what happens to the water inside the facility.

The different explanations from DHS, Geo Group, and Parias's legal team do not necessarily contradict each other on the narrow question of where the water comes from. Water from a public supply can become contaminated at multiple points between the source and the moment someone drinks it, including storage containers, dispensing equipment, and pipes inside a building. What remains unresolved is whether the organisms in the bottle came from the public water supply, the facility's own water storage and distribution system, or the specific jugs Parias identified. Geo Group's claim of regular testing does not address whether that testing covers water at the point where detainees actually receive it, or only at the point where it enters the facility from the public system. That is a distinction with significant legal and public health implications.