Judge Orders Ice To Stop Forcing Detainees To Sleep On Dirty Concrete Floors

NEW YORK — A federal judge ordered the Trump administration Tuesday to improve the conditions for ICE detainees in Manhattan after a lawsuit filed by a Peruvian immigrant complained of cramped and unsanitary holding cells.

U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered officials by Aug. 26 to provide more spacious accommodations that are equipped with a bedding mat for each detainee held overnight, have hygiene supplies and are cleaned “thoroughly” at least three times a day.

Kaplan, a Clinton appointee, also ordered officials to allow detainees private phone calls with their lawyers within 24 hours of being detained and to give them a printed notice of their rights within one hour of being placed in a holding room. The notice, Kaplan ordered, should inform them that, upon request, they will be given bottled water and one additional meal per day beyond the two that are automatically provided to them.

Kaplan indicated at a hearing Tuesday that his short-term restraining order would be followed quickly by consideration of the detainees’ motion for a longer-term injunction and the certification of a class action that would provide more sweeping protections for those detained by ICE.

The judge’s order comes amid broader national concerns about the conditions ICE detainees have been subjected to amid the Trump administration’s mass deportation and pressure to ramp up arrests. Facilities meant for short-term detention have become overcrowded and used for more prolonged confinement, with strains on supplies and access to attorneys. A federal judge in California ruled last month that conditions at a temporary facility in Los Angeles were similarly deficient, requiring ICE officials to provide for more robust access to detainees’ lawyers.

The New York-focused lawsuit was filed by Sergio Alberto Barco Mercado, a citizen of Peru who lives in New Jersey with his wife and two young children. According to court papers, Barco Mercado was detained by ICE on Friday after appearing for a court date at the Manhattan building that houses immigration offices and short-term detention facilities.

Barco Mercado’s lawsuit said the detainees are given no access to medical care, showers or changes of clothes. At Tuesday’s hearing, a lawyer for Barco Mercado told the judge that between 40 and 90 people are forced to share one or two toilets in open view of the holding cells.

“They are also being subjected to unsanitary and unsafe conditions, sleeping for days or weeks on a concrete floor with only an aluminum blanket, often with insufficient space to even lie down, often sleeping near the toilets,” the lawyer, Heather Gregorio, said.

Gregorio also said it was difficult to have a private phone conversation with her client while he was detained. The phone call was limited to one or two minutes, with a guard standing next to Barco Mercado, who “could hear a second person breathing audibly on the line,” Gregorio said.

Gregorio said detainees are given “two, essentially inedible, small meals a day.”

A Justice Department lawyer, Jeffrey Oestericher, responded: “I’m told it’s two nutritious meals. But as far as the specifics — whether it’s military meals — I don’t have the specifics on that.”

The Trump administration notably contested few of the claims about substandard conditions and even conceded that some of them were accurate. Oestericher conceded that access to medication was limited, in-person legal visits were impossible and detainees were given blankets — but not sleeping mats — to rest on.

During the hearing, Kaplan took aim at the distinction between what officials described as the ICE standards and what he was being told by detainees in court filings was occurring in practice.

“What about all these problems that I'm told about in the plaintiff's affidavits concerning soap, towels, toilet paper, oral hygiene products, feminine supplies?” he asked. “There seems to be quite a gap between the ICE standards, indeed, and what's really happening, including a 20-year-old, I gather, who was menstruating for five days and couldn't get any supplies and what was supplied for a room full of people were two items?”

Oestericher appeared to express some bewilderment.

“I read that as well, your honor,” he said. “I don't have a basis to comment, but we totally agree that necessary hygiene products should be available.”