Lawmakers visit Baltimore ICE site accused of ‘inhumane' conditions

Washington Post

9 hours ago

Two weeks after most of Maryland's congressional delegation staged a sit-in at a controversial immigration enforcement facility in Baltimore, lawmakers returned for a guided tour on Wednesday and said they were still being stonewalled about how detainees are being treated inside.
'We leave here with more questions than we came in with,' said Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D-Maryland).
Immigration Customs and Enforcement officers have been using rooms in the agency's Baltimore field office as a holding area for people arrested amid President Donald Trump's ramped-up immigration enforcement. In Maryland, where a 2021 state law bars privately run immigration detention centers, the field office functions as the agency's primary holding facility for detainees awaiting transfer out of state.
Civil rights groups have filed lawsuits in three states — including Maryland — alleging the holding facilities are not equipped for days-long detentions. And as arrests have increased, so too have concerns from immigrant rights groups and Democrats about a lack of adequate facilities.
In May, the Amica Center for Immigrant Rights and the National Immigration Project filed a federal lawsuit alleging 'inhumane conditions' in the Baltimore holding rooms. The lawsuit alleges detainees have been denied access to showers, blankets and medical care. In New York, a federal judge ruled in a similar case this week that the Trump administration must improve conditions in a Manhattan holding facility where a government lawyer acknowledged detainees were sleeping on the floor. Another lawsuit is pending in Los Angeles. The Trump administration has dismissed the concerns.
Worries about conditions in the Baltimore holding facility and other ICE detention facilities prompted a dozen Democratic lawmakers from across the country, including Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland), to file a federal lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security and ICE last month, saying each had been blocked from conducting oversight at federal detention facilities.
That lawsuit came two days after six members of Maryland's congressional delegation tried to visit the Baltimore field office, only to be turned away. At the time, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said that 'these Members of Congress could have just scheduled a tour; instead, they're running to court to drive clicks and fundraising emails.' Mfume said the lawmakers did request a visit in advance.
Earlier this summer, DHS tightened rules for congressional oversight visits, arguing field offices — such as the one in Baltimore — fall outside congressional purview to inspect detention facilities.
Three Democratic lawmakers representing Maryland — Mfume, Sen. Chris Van Hollen and Rep. Sarah Elfreth — returned Wednesday after ICE reached out and the parties scheduled a visit. During the tour, the three lawmakers said, they were able to observe three large rooms and two small ones, which held a handful of people.
'It has the kind of cold feeling that you would find in any police station,' Mfume said.
The day was an unusually slow one for the Baltimore field office, Van Hollen said. That was because Maryland ICE personnel have been tasked with assisting efforts in other states and D.C., leading to less enforcement activity in Maryland in recent days, he said they were told.
Lawmakers characterized their visit as lacking transparency. They said they raised about 20 to 25 issues with the ICE personnel who led the tour, including Nikita Baker, the acting director of the Baltimore field office, but did not receive immediate answers.
'We are going to continue to run those questions down,' Elfreth said. 'We're going to continue this drumbeat to make sure that ICE is transparent and accountable.'
ICE did not respond to questions from The Washington Post about the living conditions in the facility, how long it is holding people there and why it turned away the members of Congress during their earlier visit.
Van Hollen and Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Maryland) had raised concerns about the facility with the Department of Homeland Security in an April letter, noting that it lacked a food service program and bed space, describing ICE staff members procuring emergency foil blankets and inflatable beds.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi L. Noem wrote back in June that holding people for more than 12 hours was necessary because of limitations on space as a result of restrictions in the Maryland Dignity Not Detention Act. 'ICE is committed to safe, secure, and humane environments for all of those in ICE custody and will ensure appropriate conditions for confinement,' Noem wrote.
Though ICE did not answer questions about how many people have been detained at the facility since the start of Trump's second term, representatives did tell them more than 100 people had been at the facility at one time, Van Hollen said.
'This is a lot of people to cram into a relatively small space,' he said.
The lawmakers were denied the opportunity to speak to any detainees, Van Hollen said.
'Clearly they don't want us talking to the people who are detained here today and in the future,' he said.