Judge orders ICE to stop forcing detainees to sleep on dirty concrete floors
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.'
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