Federal judge rebukes Trump admin over crowded and abusive conditions at New York City ICE facility: ‘ICE knew, or should have known, that how it was treating detainees was wrong’

A Bill Clinton-appointed federal judge heavily criticized the Trump administration over the overcrowded and degrading conditions at a New York City ICE facility, where, according to reports, detainees were effectively cut off from attorneys. U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan said conditions at 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan violated the Constitution, partly because ICE arrests increased beyond available appropriate detention capacity. Kaplan’s ruling ordered the administration to limit detention at the facility and ensure detainees have access to legal counsel.

Dismal conditions at New York City ICE facility

Kaplan issued the ruling on Thursday, September 24, in a case brought by Sergio Alberto Barco Mercado, an asylum seeker who said he had attended his immigration court hearings and complied with immigration requirements before being detained. Mercado, who had lived in the U.S. for more than three years, said he was held in overcrowded conditions with inadequate food and water. He also alleged that he was permitted only brief phone calls and was not told about his right to legal counsel. Despite DHS claims that detainees had numerous opportunities to contact attorneys, Kaplan wrote that “the evidence proves otherwise.”

Overcrowded conditions due to increased ICE arrests

Kaplan said ICE arrests had increased so quickly that appropriate detention facilities were unavailable at the facility. It has been reported that between May and August 2025, the number of people held in the facility’s hold rooms rose from fewer than 10 to more than 100. “As ICE reacted to increasing immigration arrests by holding more detainees in 26 Fed for longer periods, the conditions of confinement in the tenth-floor hold rooms worsened dramatically,” Kaplan wrote.

The judge noted that while a 72-hour holding limit existed, detainees were sometimes kept longer because there was insufficient space at longer-term ICE facilities. “The hold rooms have no showers, no beds, no cots, no windows and lack many other things found in prisons and detention facilities. … But ICE has been arresting as many people as it can — more people than it can accommodate in appropriate detention facilities or remove from the country,” he wrote.

Judge Lewis Kaplan describes facility as a ‘black site’

Kaplan further said attorneys struggled to reach detainees at the New York City facility because ICE staff delayed calls, detainee locations were not updated in the online tracker and attorneys were sometimes told detainees were “in transit.”

“26 Fed essentially was a black site before this court issued [a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction],” Kaplan said. “Attorneys had no way to get in touch with detainees other than through ICE staff, who persistently delayed scheduling attorney-client calls by erecting procedural roadblocks, claiming that 26 Fed was too busy (again, a problem of ICE’s own making), failing to update the location of detainees in its online tracker such that attorneys were unable to find their clients, or lying and saying that a detainee currently being held at 26 Fed was ‘in transit.’”

However, according to reports, ICE continued to restrict attorney access even after the judge’s initial orders, violating the First and Fifth Amendments.

Judge Lewis Kaplan orders limits on detention

Kaplan said the conditions at the facility were connected to the Trump administration’s effort to arrest large numbers of immigrants without status. He also said some detainees chose to self-deport rather than remain at the facility, where posters promoted DHS’ $2,500 stipend and flights home. “ICE knew, or should have known, that how it was treating detainees was wrong, yet it continued to do it anyway,” Kaplan said. “It did so to inflict punishment on detainees and induce them to self-deport.”

The judge ordered DHS to impose detention-capacity limits and ensure access to counsel for current and future detainees at the facility. “Unless the number of persons arrested is reduced or the number of empty spaces in more appropriate detention facilities increased so that detainees can be housed properly in appropriate facilities—and neither seems likely in any reasonable span of time — the overcrowding and other abuses of the hold rooms at 26 Fed will resume,” he said.

Molly Biklen of the New York Civil Liberties Union reacted to the ruling, saying, “Today’s order rightly affirms that ICE cannot continue subjecting people to dehumanizing, abusive conditions at 26 Federal Plaza.”

Carmen Iguina Gonzalez of the ACLU’s National Prison Project said of the ruling, “We are pleased that the judge issued such a thorough, detailed opinion confirming the harms from the overcrowding and abuses people have suffered at 26 Federal Plaza and the need for a permanent injunction to prevent our government from inflicting that same harm in the future. … Defendants in this case already demonstrated how important it will be for us to monitor compliance closely to protect class members rights, and we will be ready to do so with respect to this permanent injunction.”