A federal judge Wednesday extended limits on the number of immigrants ICE can hold at 26 Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan and requirements that it provide detainees with basic humanitarian needs and access to legal representation.
In an opinion published Wednesday, Judge Lewis Kaplan sided with immigrants represented by the NYCLU, the ACLU and Make the Road New York, agreeing with characterizations in more than a dozen affidavits of overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, limited access to food and water, and no ability to contact their attorneys confidentially.
“ICE has forced these detainees into facilities that are too small to accommodate the numbers, that never were intended to hold people overnight, that are unequipped to feed them properly, and that, more broadly, are not capable of housing the detainees in a humane manner,” Kaplan wrote.
“Whatever the merits of the Administration’s determination to deport illegal aliens — and the Court expresses no view of that issue, which is beyond the scope of this case — we must remember that this is the United States of America. We aspire to treat all Americans – and those among us – with humanity. We are legally and morally bound to adhere to the Constitution and Laws of the United States with respect to everyone within our borders.”
Kaplan’s preliminary injunction continues a requirement first put in place in August, that people held inside 26 Federal Plaza have at least 50 square feet of space per person, be provided three meals a day, sanitary products, sleeping mats for the floor and fresh bedding, as well as the ability to talk to lawyers confidentially if they spend more than 24 hours inside.
Eunice Cho, the senior counsel with the ACLU’s National Prison Project, welcomed Kaplan’s ruling, which cited THE CITY’s previous reporting on the number of people held inside ICE holding areas and the amount of time they were kept there.
“ICE’s conduct at 26 Federal Plaza is inhumane, illegal and a direct violation of the Constitution,” she wrote. “No person should be denied medical care, access to a lawyer, or basic dignity when they are held in government custody – and we’ll continue to fight to hold ICE accountable.”
Spokespeople for ICE and for Homeland Security didn’t respond to THE CITY’s request for comment right away.
But in a social media post reacting to the ruling, DHS issued a nearly identical statement to those published over many months, again denying any mistreatment of detainees at 26 Federal Plaza.
“26 Federal Plaza is not a detention center. It is processing center where illegal aliens are briefly processed to be transferred to an ICE detention facility. Any claim that there is overcrowding or subprime conditions at ICE facilities are categorically false. All detainees are provided with proper meals, medical treatment, and have opportunities to communicate with their family members and lawyers.”
ICE’s 10th floor lockup is the centralized processing area where immigrants arrested in and around New York City are taken before being shipped off to detention centers around the country.
For years ahead of the latest arrest spike, just a handful of people would pass through the holding areas on any given day, often in a matter of hours, ICE’s own internal data shows.
But as arrests surged in late May, the number of people simultaneously held inside and the length of time they were spending both shot through the roof, THE CITY previously reported.
Concerns about conditions inside were mounting for weeks, while several members of Congress, who are supposed to have a right to inspect conditions inside ICE facilities where immigrants are held, were repeatedly barred entry. They have sued to gain access to the floor in litigation that is ongoing.
Video of conditions inside the 10th floor of 26 Federal Plaza.
A video taken by someone held inside first reported on by THE CITY appeared to confirm the stark overcrowding and deplorable conditions inside by a person filming who described being treated “like dogs.”
ICE attorneys had opposed the judge’s earlier temporary restraining, testifying that would mean the agency could hold just 22 people at once inside the four holding rooms on the 10th floor, far fewer than the nearly 200 people held there on several nights in June and July as arrests were spiking, THE CITY reported.
Despite their opposition, in an August 18 memo Nancy Zanello, the New York assistant field office director of ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations told Judge Kaplan just eight people were being held inside, though ICE has provided no additional updates since.
In his opinion Wednesday, Kaplan slammed Zanello’s written testimony to the court, pointing out she had only presented information about current conditions and offered nothing to contest the deplorable conditions described during May, June and July, ahead of the judge’s temporary restraining order.
“The statistics are unpersuasive,” Kaplan wrote. “The Court does not consider her testimony as effectively rebutting plaintiff’s evidence of actual day-to-day conditions in the 26 Fed Hold Rooms.”
In the days after immigrant advocates sued in August, the city saw an initial drop in arrests inside immigration courthouses, and an apparent lull that extended through much of August, though advocates say courthouse arrests have once again picked up again in the weeks since Labor Day.
The win for immigrant advocates Wednesday in New York comes on the heels of a blow against them several days earlier. On Friday a federal judge also in New York declined to step in to block ICE’s practice of targeting people inside immigration courthouses for arrest as that lawsuit proceeds, which has disproportionately impacted New York City.
That ruling means masked federal agents can continue to stalk the hallways of immigration courthouses as they have nearly every day since late May.
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