WASHINGTON — Six years after he was released from a California immigrant detention facility, Wilfredo Gonzalez Mena has to sleep with his back propped up by pillows, nearly in a seated position, to avoid gasping for air.
He blames his lasting medical issues on the 10 months he spent in custody until September 2020 at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, about 60 miles northeast of Los Angeles, during which guards sprayed him and fellow detainees nearly around the clock with a concentrated disinfectant meant to guard against COVID-19.
Now Gonzalez Mena, who is one of six named plaintiffs in a class-action lawsuit filed in 2023 over the use of the cleaning solution, is expected to get a six-figure payout as part of a proposed settlement in the case, which was given preliminary approval on Sept. 25 by a federal judge in Riverside. The settlement applies to around 2,700 people detained at the Adelanto facility between March 11 and Sept. 30, 2020, who were exposed to the disinfectant called HDQ Neutral.
“When you least expected it, you would feel the mist,” Gonzalez Mena said. “They would spray us like we were animals.”
The Adelanto facility is operated by the GEO Group, a Florida-based private prison corporation that has faced criticism for years over conditions at its immigrant detention facilities. The company has also pushed back against California laws seeking to increase oversight of its facilities and inform the public about health and safety shortcomings.
Under the settlement, GEO Group and Spartan Chemical Co. Inc., the company that manufactures HDQ Neutral, acknowledged that HDQ Neutral — which is classified as a pesticide — can cause symptoms including blistering, chemical burns, vomiting, permanent eye damage, and damage to the respiratory tract, throat and stomach.
Those findings can now be used by class members who weren’t named plaintiffs and may pursue their own lawsuits, the settlement says.
Neither GEO Group nor the Department of Homeland Security responded to requests for comment. After the lawsuit was filed, GEO Group denied its allegations and said cleaning products are used safely and securely, in accordance with the manufacturer’s guidelines and sanitation standards, at all detention centers.
At the time, a GEO Group spokesperson called the allegations “part of a radical politically motivated campaign to attack ICE contractors, abolish ICE and end federal immigration detention.”
The company later swapped HDQ Neutral for a different cleaning product.
Lawyers from the Los Angeles-based civil rights nonprofit Trial Impact Project who are representing the former detainees called the settlement a victory.
Executive Director Sara Haji referenced other pending lawsuits addressing allegations such as medical neglect, retaliation and substandard food and water. Each one is a different lens into the same problem, she said.
“When a company like GEO settles instead of defending itself at trial, and when it admits that the pesticide it sprayed everywhere can cause serious health problems, it should cause us all to sit up and pay attention to what detained people have been telling us about the everyday cruelty of immigration detention,” Haji said.
The lawsuit alleged that GEO Group engaged in a “months-long poisoning” of detainees when its employees sprayed HDQ Neutral inside the facility. Before the pandemic, staffers had used it as a cleaning product. But as COVID-19 spread, they began spraying the concentrated solution across wide areas, “directly into the air and on all types of surfaces,” the lawsuit said.
Detained immigrants quickly began experiencing the effects, the lawsuit claimed, including nosebleeds, headaches and dizziness.
Spartan Chemical warns that inappropriate exposure can cause the types of effects detainees experienced. Long-term exposure has been linked to asthma and, in laboratory studies on animals, reproductive issues and birth defects.
In 2021, the Environmental Protection Agency found that GEO Group had violated federal law by misusing HDQ Neutral. The report found that staff and detainees were instructed to apply the pesticide inside the facility as often as every 30 minutes, without proper ventilation and at a dilution rate of 2 ounces per gallon of water, which is double the amount allowed for disinfectant use.
In September 2021, a federal judge ordered GEO Group to discontinue use of HDQ Neutral at the Adelanto facility, writing that it had been used “with a callous disregard for the safety of Adelanto’s detainees.”
Among the more than 100,000 pages of documents released during discovery for the lawsuit was an email from a nurse at the facility to Wendy Baca, who was acting health services administrator at the Adelanto facility for Wellpath, the company providing its medical care at the time.
The nurse wrote that patients were arriving with headaches, rashes and blisters, “we believe, due to the chemicals being used to spray.”
“Some of the officers have also reported ‘feeling burned’ after touching their skin with the same gloves that were used to handle the chemical. Please look into this so we do not endanger everyone we are trying to protect,” the nurse wrote.
Baca appeared dismissive of the nurse’s concern. She forwarded the email to GEO Group’s chief of security, asking him to look into it.
“Please also remind them not to put metal into light sockets, run with scissors, or anything usually avoided with a little common sense,” she wrote.
Mark Anthony Ferretiz, a former GEO Group cook supervisor who worked at the Adelanto facility for 14 years until March 2025, wrote in a declaration that his team was told to spray the red chemical “like Lysol.”
“I could taste the spray in my mouth when I used it, and it felt heavy in my lungs,” he wrote.
At some point, the facility’s safety manager brought men from HD Supply to talk to the staff about HDQ Neutral. After learning how often the chemical was being sprayed, one of the men told Ferretiz that it was “rat poison” and that “you’re going to kill someone like that,” he said.
Years later, former detainees such as Gonzalez Mena say they’re still living with the fallout. The former long-haul truck driver said his health deteriorated so significantly while he was detained that, afterward, he could no longer pass the required physical assessment because of his vision and breathing issues.
To make ends meet, he has turned to online resale.
“My wife says that after I was released, I didn’t go back to being the same person,” he said. “I’ve had depression and I often dream that I am there, in that place, and I want to get out.”
In California’s Sacramento Valley, a grower was cited for multiple pesticide safety violations in a stone fruit orchard.
In the sweeping farmlands near the Central Coast, a seed supplier that cultivates peppers, vegetables and fruit was hit with more than two dozen pesticide safety violations, some of them serious offenses that caused health or environmental hazards.
And in the San Joaquin Valley, an agricultural retailer with a history of pesticide safety violations was cited for failing to provide protective equipment for workers and post emergency medical information in the fields.
In all, nearly 18,000 regulatory actions were taken by county pesticide safety inspectors across California from the start of 2020 through June 2025. Fewer than 30% resulted in fines, though, according to state enforcement records.
When regulators did levy penalties, they were often as low as $50 to $250, and they varied widely from county to county for the same violations, according to an analysis of more than 40,000 state enforcement records obtained through public records requests.
The regulatory system designed to protect farmworkers from pesticides is enforced haphazardly across California. Even in cases where regulators found that companies endangered workers or committed multiple violations, few were penalized for all their citations. Instead, they received warnings or notices to correct problems for cases in which they were not penalized, an investigation by Capital & Main has found.
In interviews, dozens of farmworkers reported suffering from nausea, burning eyes or irritated throats due to chemical-laced fields. Most said they didn’t report the problems because they feared retaliation or lacked confidence in the regulatory system.
“Yes, there are laws,” said Jesus, his face wrinkled from years of harvesting garlic, pruning grape vines and picking blackberries in the sun-baked San Joaquin Valley.
“But unfortunately, at times the law favors the powerful — it sides with the wealthy,” he added, asking that his last name not be used for fear of reprisal from his bosses.
Autonomous tractors, which are used to apply pesticides, line a field in Fresno County. The machines are operated remotely and spray crops including pistachio and almond trees.A scarecrow overlooks a field of corn at La Huerta de Cantua Creek.
Labor and community activists who track pesticide safety issues contend that lenient penalties, as well as warning letters and written notices, fail to deter violators, especially repeat offenders and larger businesses that can absorb the costs of fines.
State records show that warning letters and written notices were issued more than twice as often as penalties, “[raising] serious questions about accountability and deterrence,” said Bianca Lopez, co-founder and project director at Valley Improvement Projects, which monitors pesticide safety in the northern San Joaquin Valley.
The findings come as state officials are proposing to overhaul decades-old pesticide regulations to toughen enforcement and standardize penalties. Those proposals are strongly opposed by groups representing growers, retailers and providers of agricultural services.
Current regulations are enforced by county agricultural commissioners, who police pesticides in their jurisdictions and also promote California’s $61-billion agricultural industry.
In a statement, the California Department of Pesticide Regulation acknowledged the need to improve regulation and ensure it is applied consistently in every county.
Department spokesperson Amy MacPherson said officials are also proposing new regulations that would increase fines for violations that affect people’s health. This can include cases in which toxic chemicals drift into neighboring fields or communities and sicken people.
MacPherson said county agricultural commissioners have discretion in deciding which enforcement tools — warning letters, written notices, fines — to use in a given situation, depending on the “nature and severity of the violation.”
Paola Lopez, who has harvested raisins in the central San Joaquin Valley, supports stronger regulations.
On a Saturday in late September 2025, the 40-year-old mother of four was loading crates of grapes onto a forklift in a Fresno County field. A tractor pulling a pesticide sprayer passed by on a street just a few yards away. She remembers a loud blast — then a toxic spray covered her face and arms.
“It was a little hard for me to breathe, and my eyes started burning a lot,” she said in Spanish, recounting the incident to a reporter. “I could hardly see.”
Disoriented, she called local activist Nayamin Martinez, executive director of the Central California Environmental Justice Network. Lopez had received pesticide safety training from the organization.
Martinez told Lopez to go to a hospital and said she would file a complaint with the Fresno County agricultural commissioner’s office.
“She started vomiting and became dizzy,” the local activist wrote of Lopez in the complaint.
Paola Lopez, 40, harvests raisins in the San Joaquin Valley and cares for her four children when she is not working in the fields. In September 2025, she was exposed to toxic pesticides and required emergency medical treatment. The county agricultural commissioner investigated the incident and found multiple state pesticide safety violations. Above, Lopez at home with two of her children on April 4.
A reporter reviewed copies of safety notices required by federal law that detail the hazardous chemicals that were mixed into the pesticide load that sprayed Lopez.
“Harmful if inhaled,” one notice says. “Causes skin irritation.”
“Danger … Causes serious eye irritation,” a second document adds.
“May cause cancer,” it warns.
California, unlike other states, has a split system of pesticide oversight. The Department of Pesticide Regulation is charged with statewide enforcement and provides guidance and training for 55 county agricultural commissioners, who police their jurisdictions.
State officials do not supervise the agricultural commissioners, who are appointed by and report to their elected boards of supervisors.
In interviews, commissioners lauded California’s enforcement system, saying they think it’s important to have discretion when applying regulations because crops, growing seasons and pesticide use vary from county to county. They said their work has improved safety in the fields.
The flexibility “gives us the ability to closely work with growers and … keep our communities safe,” said Juan Hidalgo, agricultural commissioner for Monterey County, one of the top farming counties in the nation with a gross agricultural production value of $4.8 billion in 2025.
Last year, a Capital & Main investigation found that companies with violations in multiple counties across California were not fined for hundreds of those offenses — many involving worker safety.
In 2023, a federal audit flagged serious pesticide incidents in half a dozen counties and uncovered patchwork oversight by agricultural commissioners. The county regulators interpret pesticide safety laws differently, are not required to justify fines and are not mandated to check a company’s statewide compliance history, the audit found.
The Department of Pesticide Regulation in late 2025 unveiled searchable county and statewide data breakdowns for regulatory actions taken by agricultural commissioners from the start of 2020 through the end of June 2025.
During that period, commissioners took 17,742 regulatory actions for pesticide violations of all types, but only 4,885 resulted in fines or referrals to district attorneys for possible prosecution, according to the data.
The treatment of violators, including repeat offenders and companies cited for serious infractions, varied depending on the county, according to the analysis by Capital & Main, which examined 40,150 state enforcement records detailing investigations, violations and civil penalties from 2018 through early 2024.
In one county, for instance, an agricultural commissioner fined a farmer $2,000 for failing to provide safety training for workers who applied pesticides in fields. In another county, a grower was fined $200 for the same violation.
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1.A farmworker, 43, who is not identified for her safety, picks grapes that will be sold as raisins in southwest Fresno County on Sept. 3. She works from 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. and is paid 36 cents for each paper sheet she fills.2.A grape farm in Fresno County.
Failure to provide pesticide safety training for workers who handle pesticides is one of the most common violations in California, according to state regulators. Such training is crucial for all field workers because pesticides have different safety requirements and can pose serious health risks.
Many farmworkers who were interviewed, including Lopez, who was sprayed in the raisin field, said employers did not provide pesticide safety training.
According to the analysis, more than 240 businesses were cited for at least 1,268 violations in multiple counties across California, but they paid no fines for nearly half of these citations — many involving worker safety.
Labor advocates who have studied pesticide regulation say the oversight gaps and failures to impose stiffer fines underscore the need for more vigilant enforcement. They note that rural and predominantly Latino communities are disproportionately affected.
“We need much stronger and more consistent enforcement to protect workers and communities,” said Anne Katten, director of the Pesticide & Work Health & Safety Project for the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation.
In June, the Department of Pesticide Regulation unveiled proposed changes to state pesticide regulations. The approval process will take months and has involved public comment; revised rules are expected to be adopted next year, officials said.
To address uneven enforcement, the new rules would require agricultural commissioners to check whether companies were cited for violations in other counties, officials said. Commissioners would also have increased reporting requirements when they don’t impose fines. Minimum levels for penalties would be raised and stiffer fines would be imposed for repeat offenders.
But individual farmers as well as more than a dozen associations that represent growers, agricultural retailers and firms that spray pesticides have voiced opposition to the changes. They argue that current regulations are effective, that agricultural commissioners need flexibility to investigate violations and that more training is needed to help growers understand the rules, according to written comments obtained through California Public Records Act requests.
“A one-size-fits-all enforcement approach fails to account for California’s agricultural diversity,” said a letter sent to state officials in December that was signed by groups such as the California Strawberry Commission and California Agricultural Aircraft Assn.
“Maintaining county-level discretion,” the letter says, “ensures that enforcement decisions reflect on-the-ground realities and local expertise.”
Some supporting the overhaul say it doesn’t go far enough to protect workers and communities.
Violations of reporting requirements, including those involving pesticide spraying near schools, would trigger only minor, optional fines, said Yanely Martinez, an organizer with Safe Ag Safe Schools, which monitors pesticide safety in the Salinas and Pajaro valleys.
In early June, the investigation into the pesticide exposure case involving Paola Lopez was closed.
Officials found five violations, including failure to have an emergency medical plan for workers, failure to protect people and wildlife from pesticide drift and failure to have pesticide safety records on file, according to a copy of the investigative report obtained through a public records request.
The agricultural commissioner’s office referred the case in June to the Fresno County District Attorney’s Office for possible criminal prosecution. As of mid-September, the case was still under review and there was no timeline for a decision regarding potential criminal charges, said Taylor P. Long, spokesperson for the district attorney.
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1.Crates stacked at a grape farm in Fresno County.2.Crates of raisins dry in the sun in Caruthers in Fresno County.3.Sweet Harvest Church is surrounded by agricultural fields in an area of Fresno where many low-income families live and work.
If prosecutors reject the case, it would go back to the agricultural commissioner’s office, which would determine the severity of the violations and how much the fines would be, said Mario Reeves, Fresno County’s assistant agricultural commissioner.
Lopez was at her apartment in the prosperous farmland known as the “Raisin Capital of the World” when a reporter told her about the investigation’s findings and the timeframe for penalties.
She expressed frustration that months would pass before anyone is held accountable.
“How many more people will be exposed? … How many more people will get injured?” she said.
Lopez’s medical bills are covered by workers’ compensation insurance, but her health has worsened and her doctor has referred her to specialists who deal with respiratory and nervous system disorders, she said.
She had gone back to the raisin fields days after she was exposed, even though her throat was sore and she was coughing, because she needed the money. “We cannot afford the luxury of just walking away from a job,” she said.
She lasted less than two days before becoming too sick to work. She has not returned.
Lopez is an independent journalist and fellow at the McGraw Center for Business Journalism. Data journalist Cherry Salazar analyzed state pesticide records for this report.
