Immigrants housed at 26 Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan face \u201ccrowded, squalid and punitive conditions,\u201d and are being deprived of access to attorneys, according to a class-action lawsuit brought by a Peruvian man against Homeland Security officials on Friday.<\/p>\n
According to the complaint, \u201cpeople are detained for extended periods of time, often for a week or more, sleeping on the concrete floor next to the toilet, in cells that are either freezing or oppressively hot.\u201d The lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union, New York Civil Liberties Union and Make the Road New York on behalf of Sergio Alberto Barco Mercado and others.<\/p>\n
The lawsuit names Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director Todd Lyons and other Trump administration officials as defendants. It claims ICE officers \u201cdeny individuals access to basic hygiene items, such as soap, clean clothes, toothbrushes, menstrual products and the opportunity to bathe,\u201d and that as many as 70 to 90 people are being held in rooms measuring just 215 square feet.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aThe conditions of confinement violate not only basic human rights,\u201d the NYCLU\u2019s Executive Director Donna Lieberman told Gothamist, \u201cbut they violate ICE’s own rules and policies.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200aThis is a practice that has been going on and will continue to go on under this administration,\u201d Lieberman said. \u201c\u200aIt\u2019s a practice that cannot be allowed to continue if we call ourselves a civilized society.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mercado lives in Ocean County, New Jersey, with his wife and two young children, including an infant, according to the complaint, which stated that ICE agents detained him after a scheduled court appearance on Aug. 8. He is originally from Peru, according<\/a> to the New York Times.<\/p>\n In one particularly unsettling account from the lawsuit, contained in a footnote, a woman who had her period while in detention was deprived of menstrual products \u201cbecause the guards only gave the women in her hold room two pads to share among them.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAs a result, she had no way to prevent her underwear and pants from becoming saturated with blood,\u201d the lawsuit stated. \u201cBecause she was never given a change of clothes, she had to thereafter remain in her bloodsoaked clothes for the duration of her detention.\u201d<\/p>\n