{"id":1764,"date":"2025-08-12T21:49:03","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T21:49:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.logicalware.net\/?p=1764"},"modified":"2025-08-19T19:18:54","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T19:18:54","slug":"judge-mandates-ice-improve-manhattan-holding-facility-conditions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.logicalware.net\/index.php\/2025\/08\/12\/judge-mandates-ice-improve-manhattan-holding-facility-conditions\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge mandates ICE improve Manhattan holding facility conditions\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

A federal judge on Tuesday temporarily ordered<\/a> Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to improve conditions for migrants it detains in a federal building in downtown Manhattan. <\/p>\n

Civil rights groups raised alarm to U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan about conditions in the facility<\/a>, saying migrants were overcrowded, subjected to extreme temperatures and not provided sufficient access to medication and counsel. <\/p>\n

The Justice Department acknowledged migrants were only being given two meals per day and not provided with their medication or sleeping mats. But the government contested other accusations and argued the judge shouldn\u2019t intervene because there wasn\u2019t presently overcrowding. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere seems to be quite a gap between the ICE standards, indeed, and what’s really happening,\u201d Kaplan said at a hearing earlier in the day. <\/p>\n

He ordered ICE to provide various items to the migrants upon request, including clean clothing, soap, feminine hygiene products, bedding mats, additional blankets, and access to medication and medical personnel. Migrants must also be given bottled water and a third meal if they want it. <\/p>\n

Kaplan\u2019s five-page ruling additionally mandates immigration officials set up dedicated telephone lines so migrants can call an attorney unmonitored within 24 hours of being detained. They must be allowed to make additional calls every additional 12 hours.<\/p>\n

Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the administration will appeal the order. She stressed migrants are only briefly held at the facility and called claims of subprime conditions “categorically false.”<\/p>\n

\u201cThis order and this lawsuit are driven by complete fiction about 26 Federal Plaza,” McLaughlin said in a statement. “The fact of the matter here is the Trump administration is carrying out the largest deportation operation in American history and is removing the worst of the worst from American communities.”<\/p>\n

\u201cToday\u2019s order sends a clear message: ICE cannot hold people in abusive conditions and deny them their Constitutional rights to due process and legal representation,\u201d Eunice Cho, senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), said in a statement. The ACLU helped bring the case.<\/p>\n

“We\u2019ll continue to fight to ensure that peoples\u2019 rights are upheld at 26 Federal Plaza and beyond,\u201d Cho continued. <\/p>\n

The ruling lasts up to two weeks, and the judge is set to soon consider whether to grant a longer injunction. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a first step, in my view,\u201d Kaplan said at the hearing.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd my conclusion here is that there is a very serious threat of continuing irreparable injury, given the conditions that I’ve been told about,\u201d he continued. \u201cI have no enforceable way of assuring that any progress that, in fact, has been made won’t backslide very quickly.\u201d <\/p>\n

Kaplan is an appointee of former President Clinton.<\/p>\n

ICE has set up the holding facility in an office building at Federal Plaza in downtown Manhattan. Civil rights groups have accused ICE of using it to support\u00a0systematic arrests of migrants who appear for immigration court proceedings in the building.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At Tuesday\u2019s hearing, Justice Department attorney Jeffrey Oestericher said only 26 individuals were currently being held in the facility, which consists of four rooms. The plaintiffs had said as many as 90 people were recently held in just\u00a0several hundred square feet.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cPresent conditions are relevant,\u201d Oestericher told the judge. \u201cTo the extent they are talking about overcrowding, it does not appear presently that there is overcrowding.\u201d <\/p>\n

Oestericher said he didn\u2019t have firm numbers yet on the facility\u2019s recent history because of the fast speed of the case but he would provide that answer to the court. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think we all agree that conditions at 26 Federal Plaza need to be humane, and we obviously share that belief. I think there is some factual disagreement,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Democrats have increasingly taken aim, too. Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.), whose district includes the facility, is suing the Trump administration<\/a> over allegations he was unlawfully denied access to tour it in June. ICE personnel told him they weren\u2019t obligated to provide access because it is not a \u201cdetention facility.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Updated on Aug. 13 at 9:32 a.m. EDT<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A federal judge on Tuesday temporarily ordered Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to improve conditions for migrants it detains in a federal building in downtown Manhattan.  Civil rights groups raised<\/p>\n

Continue reading <\/use> <\/svg>Judge mandates ICE improve Manhattan holding facility conditions\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1766,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.logicalware.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1764"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.logicalware.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.logicalware.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.logicalware.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.logicalware.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1764"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.logicalware.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1764\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1765,"href":"http:\/\/www.logicalware.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1764\/revisions\/1765"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.logicalware.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.logicalware.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.logicalware.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.logicalware.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}