Chicago<\/a> area.<\/p>\nLawyers for the two immigrants, however, argue that the number of immigrants housed in the facility outstrips its ability to safely handle them.<\/p>\n
According to ICE data cited in the lawsuit, nearly 5,202 people have been held at Broadview between January and July of this year. At any given time, at least 200 people are inside the facility.<\/p>\n
But the numbers have increased since the Trump administration launched what it calls Operation Midway Blitz on September 8. Led by Noem and the Department of Homeland Security, Midway Blitz was designed to increase immigration arrests in the Chicago area.<\/p>\n
That push has placed strain on the Broadview facility, according to the class action. It explains that, while Broadview was intended as a \u201cholding facility\u201d for short-term detention, it is now being used for \u201cwarehousing people\u201d for \u201cdays on end\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cICE officers have even held eight women in an isolation room designed for a single person for at least a day,\u201d the lawsuit alleged.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe increased number of immigration arrests during Operation Midway Blitz has resulted in overcrowding at Broadview so extreme that people are forced to stand in cramped conditions. There often is not even room for detainees to lie down on the floor.\u201d<\/p>\n
It also describes rooms with bodily fluid on the wall, overflowing toilets and infestations of cockroaches and centipedes.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe told the guards that the place was at full capacity, but they kept bringing people inside,\u201d one anonymous woman is quoted as saying in the lawsuit. \u201cThey treated us like animals, or worse than animals, because no one treats their pets like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The lawsuit also asserts that detainees have been denied access to adequate food, water, hygiene and medical care.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
While some detainees have been allowed to use a cellphone or landline for a brief period to contact legal representation or family, the complaint says that the conversations have been held in a central area where federal officers were able to listen to the conversations.<\/p>\n
Some detainees have been denied access to outside communication altogether, the lawsuit added, and lawyers and religious representatives have been prohibited from entering.<\/p>\n
While immigration facilities are subject to oversight by members of Congress, the lawsuit alleges that federal representatives have likewise been barred from entering the facility.<\/p>\n
\u201cAccess to counsel is not a privilege. It is a right,\u201d Nate Eimer, a partner at the law firm Eimer Stahl and co-counsel in the lawsuit, said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can debate immigration policy, but there is no debating the denial of legal rights and holding those detained in conditions that are not only unlawful but inhumane.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Trump administration has consistently denied allegations of abusive conditions in ICE facilities.<\/p>\n
But Operation Midway Blitz has been the subject of intense scrutiny since its launch, as reports of abuse mount.<\/p>\n
Advocates have accused the aggressive immigration operation, often carried out by armed, masked agents, of demonstrating a \u201cpattern of extreme brutality\u201d.<\/p>\n
Incidents include a recent case where tear gas was deployed near a neighbourhood Halloween parade, with young children present.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two immigrants detained in Chicago, Illinois, have filed a class-action lawsuit against top officials at the United States…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":346014,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,413,356,69,454,118,5386,1818,12489,50,67,72],"class_list":{"0":"post-346013","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-civil-rights","10":"tag-courts","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-government","13":"tag-human-rights","14":"tag-il","15":"tag-illinois","16":"tag-migration","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-us-canada"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346013","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}