A federal judge has mandated the Trump administration to urgently enhance the conditions at a New York City immigration detention center. This decision came after incarcerated migrants complained about unsanitary, foul-smelling, and overcrowded conditions in the cells.
Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, addressing a lawsuit from the detainees, enacted a temporary restraining order demanding U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to cap the facility’s occupancy, maintain cleanliness, and provide sleeping mats in the so-called hold rooms located in 26 Federal Plaza, a government building in Manhattan.
Footage captured via a cell phone by a detainee last month depicted approximately two dozen men packed into one of the four hold rooms at the facility, with many of them lying on the floor utilizing thermal blankets but lacking mattresses or padding.
Legal documents filed by detainees highlighted the absence of soap, toothbrushes, and other hygiene necessities. They also reported being served unpalatable food and suffering from a “horrific stench” of sweat, urine, and feces, aggravated by the presence of open toilets. In one instance, a woman experiencing menstruation had difficulty accessing menstrual products, as the limited supplies were insufficient for all women in her room, according to the lawsuit.
Judge Kaplan directed federal immigration authorities to allot 50 square feet per person, effectively reducing the capacity of the largest hold room to about 15 individuals, compared to the previously reported 40 or more. This building, which houses immigration court, the FBI’s New York field office, and other federal agencies, has become a focal point for arrests and detentions amid President Donald Trump’s intensified efforts against illegal immigration.
The judge also instructed the government to clean the cells thoroughly three times daily and to ensure ample supplies of soap, towels, toilet paper, toothbrushes, toothpaste, and feminine hygiene products. To address concerns about the detainees’ ability to consult with legal representatives, Kaplan ordered the provision of confidential, unmonitored, and unrecorded phone communication facilities for legal consultations.
“My conclusion here is that there is a very serious threat of continuing irreparable injury, given the conditions that I’ve been told about,” Kaplan said at a hearing Tuesday where a government lawyer conceded that some of the complaints were valid.
“I think we all agree that conditions at 26 Federal Plaza need to be humane, and we obviously share that belief,” government lawyer Jeffrey S. Oestericher said, adding that he agreed “inhumane conditions are not appropriate and should not be tolerated.”
The lawsuit — filed by the immigrant rights organization Make the Road New York, the New York Civil Liberties Union and the American Civil Liberties Union — sought court intervention to end what plaintiff lawyer Heather Gregorio called “inhumane and horrifying conditions.”
Some detainees have been held at 26 Federal Plaza for days or even weeks before being sent to other facilities — longer than the 72-hour norm, Gregorio said.
In a sworn declaration, Nancy Zanello, an assistant director of ICE’s New York City Field Office of Enforcement and Removal Operations, wrote that as of Monday a total of 24 people were held in the building’s four hold rooms — well shy of the city fire marshal’s 154-person cap.
Each room is equipped with at least one toilet and sink, and hygiene products are available, including soap and teeth cleaning wipes, and feminine products, Zanello said.
Sergio Barco Mercado, the named plaintiff in the lawsuit, said in a court filing that he was held at 26 Federal Plaza for two days last week after his arrest there while leaving an immigration court hearing. He was subsequently transferred to an upstate New York detention facility.
Barco Mercado, a native of Peru who said he sought asylum in the U.S. in 2022, said his hold room was “extremely crowded,” cold and “smelled of sewage,” and that the conditions exacerbated a tooth infection that swelled his face and altered his speech.
“We did not always get enough water,” Barco Mercado said in a sworn declaration. “There was one guard who would sometimes hold a bottle of water up and people would wait to have him squirt some into our mouths, like we were animals.”
Another detainee, Carlos Lopez Benitez, said he fled violence in Paraguay in 2023 and was seeking asylum in the U.S. when he was arrested in July while leaving an immigration court hearing. Officers pressed him to self-deport, he said, and told him he’d be in detention until a 2029 hearing on his asylum application.
Lopez Benitez said an arresting officer showed him a cell phone photo of his arrest and mocked him for crying. In his holding cell, he said, officers kept the air conditioning blasting and doled out meals that “looked like dog food.”
