Nov. 5 (UPI) — A federal judge was expected to rule Wednesday after he called the conditions at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in a Chicago suburb “disgusting” after hearing more than 6 hours of testimony.
U.S District Judge Robert W. Gettleman on Tuesday reviewed the conditions at the facility in Broadview, Ill., that ICE is using as part of Operation Midway Blitz. He’s ruling on a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois last week over detainee access to lawyers and allegedly inhumane conditions there.
Gettleman told the court that what he heard qualifies for court intervention. He said he will issue a final ruling on Wednesday, and that it will not be “impossible to comply with.”
“I think everybody can admit that we don’t want to treat people the way that I heard people are being treated today,” Gettleman said after hearing testimony from five detainees being held at the facility, calling their descriptions of the facility “disgusting” and “unconstitutional.”
“It’s a disturbing record,” Gettleman said. “People sleeping shoulder to shoulder, next to overflowing toilets and human waste — that’s unacceptable.”
The Justice Department argued in a response to the ACLU’s lawsuit that people at the facility are “adequately provided with food, clothing, shelter and medical care before they are transferred to another detention facility.”
During the hearing on Tuesday, Justice Department attorney Jana Brady suggested that the five detainees may not properly recall their experience at the facility, and questioned whether they understood what was going on there in the first place.
Brady also noted, however, that authorities were working to improve conditions at the facility, which was operating beyond its normal capacity. She said there was “a learning curve” as operations continue.
In its lawsuit, the ACLU alleged that agents at the Broadview facility have treated detainees “abhorrently, depriving them of sleep, privacy, menstrual products and the ability to shower,” as well as denied entry and communication with attorneys, members of Congress, and religious and faith leaders.
The MacArthur Justice Center and Roger Baldwin Foundation, of the ACLU, called Broadview a “black hole, and federal officials are acting with impunity inside its walls.”
During the hearing on Tuesday, Gettleman heard from detainees who said they had to step over bodies at night while people slept on the floor; would wake people up when going to the bathroom because they were sleeping next to the toilet; received just a thin foil blanket or a sweater despite freezing temperatures overnight; and observed poor sanitation, clogged toilets, and blood, human fluids and insects in the sinks and the floor.
One detainee told the judge that female detainees at one point used garbage bags to unclog a toilet and that, when they asked for a broom to clean, guards refused.
The facility is a two-story building in an industrial area of the Village of Broadview, about 12 miles west of downtown Chicago, which has long been used by immigration authorities, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
In June, the Department of Homeland Security changed its policy to allow detainees to be held there for as long as 72 hours, up from the 12 hours that previously had been the limit.
After hearing from witnesses that detainees have been held there for as long as 12 days, and that the building does not have beds, blankets or pillows, Gettleman said the building has “become a prison” and may be “unconstitutional.”
The Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday afternoon said in a post on X that Broadview is not a detention center, but rather a processing center, and that it is processing “the worst of the worst, including pedophiles, gang members and rapists.”
“All detainees are provided with three meals a day, water and have access to communicate with their family members and lawyers,” the department said in the post. “No one is denied access to proper medical care.”
“Any claims there are subprime conditions at the Broadview ICE facility are FALSE,” it added.
Noting that the facility is a key part of the department’s immigration enforcement effort in Chicago, Brady said that a temporary restraining order requiring the department to improve the facility, “as it is currently written, would effectively halt the government’s ability to enforce immigration laws in Illinois.”
