Judge orders ICE to end overcrowding at Baltimore detention facility

Listen to this article

A federal judge on Friday ordered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to limit the number of detainees in its Baltimore “hold rooms” and certified the detainees as a class.

Maryland U.S. District Judge Julie Rubin issued a preliminary injunction against ICE, requiring it to keep the hold rooms at or below their capacity of 56 people. She ordered ICE to provide adequate hygiene products, to “thoroughly” clean the hold rooms every day and to provide detainees a basic medical screening within 12 hours.

“The totality of the circumstances demonstrate a serious deprivation,” Rubin wrote.

Citing another case, she wrote, “These conditions woefully fail to comport with ‘contemporary standards of decency.’”

ICE did not respond to a request for comment.

The decision is a victory for the detainees, who said ICE deprived them of sleep, medical care, hygiene, food, water, privacy and access to counsel at the George H. Fallon Federal Building in downtown Baltimore.

They alleged the hold rooms were overcrowded and cold, and that bright lights remained on at all hours. Many people were held there for more than a week, despite a policy generally requiring transfers out of the hold rooms within 12 hours.

Their allegations of overcrowding were validated by a viral video this year from inside one of the hold rooms, in which men were packed close together, with only aluminum blankets and no mattresses. Rubin noted that ICE confirmed the authenticity of the video.

Last summer, Rubin denied an earlier motion to certify the class, ruling that the plaintiffs hadn’t shown that they could adequately represent the class, and that there wasn’t sufficient commonality between their broad-ranging claims.

The two lead plaintiffs, D.N.N. and V.R.G., are being held in New Mexico and Louisiana as of mid-February, the opinion states. They originally sued over the inhumane conditions in May, represented by the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights and the National Immigration Project.

“This decision is a crucial step toward accountability,” said Amelia Dagen, senior attorney at the Amica Center.

“As this case moves forward, we will work with the class plaintiffs, our partners, Maryland government officials, and the broader community to ensure that ICE complies fully with the Court’s order and that people are treated with the basic dignity and care everyone deserves.”

ICE did not deny the plaintiffs’ key allegations but said their rights weren’t violated. It argued the hold rooms were overcrowded because of a lack of long-term detention capacity in Maryland; the state banned local governments from renting out detention space to ICE in 2022.

From Feb. 1 to mid-October of last year, almost all detainees — 95% — were held longer than 12 hours, typically the maximum, Rubin wrote. A nationwide waiver allowed detentions up to 72 hours, but 27% of detainees were still held beyond that.

More than half of detainees were held while the facility was already over capacity, Rubin wrote. She noted that the hold rooms’ daily population exceeded 100 people on seven days during the seven-and-a-half months of discovery. The peak population was 123.

When the hold rooms are at the 56-person capacity, each person has an average of 31 square feet of space.

Maryland’s congressional delegation and several local officials on Monday visited the facility, and no one was being detained. Other times, when they’ve attempted to visit, ICE officials would not let them see the facility.

It’s unclear how many people ICE was detaining at the time of the order or where the agency sent them.

“The least they can do is make sure that they address people’s urgent medical needs,” U.S. Sen. Chris Van Hollen said at a press conference outside the Fallon building. “Overwhelmingly, the people who are detained and locked up pose no threat to public safety.”