Federal Judge Blasts 'Disgusting' ICE Facility Conditions, Orders Basic Humane Treatment for Detainees

“The evidence has been pretty strong that his facility is no longer just a temporary holding facility,” said U.S. District Court Judge Robert Gettleman. “It has really become a prison.”

A federal judge issued a temporary restraining order on Wednesday in response to an emergency class action lawsuit filed on behalf of individuals who have been held at the Broadview Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility near Chicago. The order requires that the facility provide detainees with clean bedding and space to sleep, basic hygiene supplies, showers, free water, and three full meals a day. Detainees must also be given their prescribed medications and be allowed to communicate with attorneys. The decision comes the day after five detainees testified in court to the inhumane and unlawful conditions they experienced while at the facility. 

"People shouldn't be sleeping in plastic chairs. They shouldn't be sleeping on the floor," United States District Judge Robert Gettleman said on Wednesday.

The emergency lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois' Eastern Division on October 30, accuses the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and ICE of denying detainees adequate access to counsel, food, water, and medical care. An emergency hearing was held on Tuesday, in which Broadview detainees described being held in a cell with roughly 150 other people, sleeping on the floor for days near overflowing toilets, inoperable showers, and a lack of hygiene products like toothbrushes, toothpaste, and soap while at the facility. 

One of the detainees who spoke on Tuesday was Felipe Agustin Zamacona, a 47-year-old man who was born in Mexico but has lived in the U.S. for 31 years. He said the cell was never mopped or swept, and had an overflowing garbage can, according to CBS News. He told the judge that "it smelled like a dirty washroom, like sweat, like a dirty locker," reported The New York Times. Although detainees were given two or three cold sandwiches a day, Agustin only ate his first one after subsequently getting sick with diarrhea.

The complaint alleges that "people are forced to use a toilet that is located inside their crowded holding cell." In some cells, these toilets are separated "by a partial wall that affords almost no privacy." In others, the toilet "is entirely unseparated from the rest of the cell," and "large windows in the holding cells allow men to see the women when they use the toilet, and women to see the men." On Tuesday, Agustin said that when he went to use the bathroom, he had to wake someone up who was either sleeping on or near the toilet. 

The testifying detainees also described being denied access to an attorney while being pressured to sign legal documents that would relinquish their rights. Another witness, Claudia Carolina Pereira Guevara, who attended the hearing remotely from Honduras, recounted signing papers after she was denied an attorney. "They said, 'Well, what for?' because I didn't have anything I can do anymore," she testified. "I had my children [in the U.S.] and I didn't want to leave them behind," she continued. 

After sleeping on the floor of the dirty cell, Pereira fell ill, unable to feel her feet, and began vomiting. Her request to go to the hospital was denied, she said, but she was taken out of the cell in a wheelchair and given an unknown medication. Pereira eventually signed the deportation paperwork written in English—a language she does not speak or understand—after she was told she would be held at the facility until she signed. She was then deported to Honduras and separated from her children.

In response to the allegations, Justice Department attorney Jana Brady argued that Broadview is a temporary holding facility designed to hold detainees for 12 hours, does not provide beds, and has limited space for things like in-person meetings with counsel. However, the facility has taken on a new role as the epicenter of immigration enforcement and ongoing protests in Chicago since the beginning of "Operation Midway Blitz." Amid its evolving role, Brady said, "The government has improved the operations at the Broadview facility over the last couple of months." "It's been a learning curve," she added. 

NBC News reported that during the Tuesday hearing, Judge Robert W. Gettleman described the conditions at the ICE facility as "disgusting" and "unnecessarily cruel," and was disinclined to accept Brady's argument that conditions at Broadview should be excused because of its "temporary" nature. "The evidence has been pretty strong that his facility is no longer just a temporary holding facility," Gettleman said. "It has really become a prison." 

Plaintiffs requested that Gettleman declare the Broadview policies and practices unconstitutional and demand that certain living conditions be met, such as providing detainees with adequate space, bedding for sleeping, clean clothing, full meals three times a day, and basic hygiene supplies. Plaintiffs also asked that detainees be able to meet with or schedule confidential calls with legal counsel within three hours of detention at the facility. Brady pushed back on these conditions and said providing everything plaintiffs asked for "would effectively halt the government's ability to enforce immigration laws in Illinois." 

Gettleman's Wednesday order directs Broadview to comply with many of the plaintiffs' demands. But he stopped short of ordering the facility closed if conditions couldn't be met within three days, stating that the order "honors the discretionary functions of running an institution like this and making it as workable as possible," and that he didn't expect the facility to be in full compliance with the order "at the snap of a finger."

Gettleman ordered the attorneys to provide an update on the facility's status by noon on Friday and scheduled the next hearing for November 19.

On paper, the order is a notable win for detainees at Broadview who have had to suffer inhumane conditions at the facility. But only time will tell if the DHS, CBP, and ICE actually comply with the order and take the rights of detainees seriously, or if they will ignore the court as the Trump administration has made a habit of doing.