Full Breakdown
Judge Orders Permanent Reforms at Manhattan Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Detention Site
By Drooid · · How we work
Core Event: Federal Court Blocks Degrading Conditions at 26 Federal Plaza
U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan issued a 127-page opinion ordering the Department of Homeland Security to permanently improve conditions at 26 Federal Plaza. The judge found that overcrowded “hold rooms” violated the First and Fifth Amendments and constituted “cruelty” intended to induce self-deportations. He granted class-action status to current and future detainees and imposed a permanent injunction requiring humane treatment, access to counsel, and on-site medical care.
Background & Context
The case stems from a class-action lawsuit filed by detainee Sergio Alberto Barco Mercado, an asylum seeker who alleged severe overcrowding, limited phone access, and denial of legal-counsel information. The lawsuit built on a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction issued in August 2025 after former detainees described “appalling hygiene conditions,” lack of basic supplies, and punitive posters offering a $2,500 stipend for voluntary departure. ICE officials asserted that detainees had adequate access to counsel and that conditions had improved; the judge rejected this claim as “unbelievable” given the evidence.
Data & Statistics
- Between May and August 2025, the number of people in the tenth-floor hold rooms rose from fewer than 10 to over 100.
- July 1 2025: ICE data showed 175 detainees in the detention area, “almost eight times over capacity.”
- The Daily News reported that more than 1,000 individuals were detained inside the skyscraper during the administration’s intensified deportation campaign.
Official Statements & Responses
- Carmen Iguina Gonzalez, deputy director of immigration detention at the ACLU’s National Prison Project, said the injunction will enable close monitoring of compliance.
- Molly Biklen, Legal Director at the New York Civil Liberties Union, called the order a necessary affirmation that ICE cannot continue “dehumanizing, abusive conditions.”
- ICE, through DHS statements, maintained that detainees now have “numerous opportunities” to contact counsel and that the agency is complying with the August 2025 order, despite the judge’s finding that “the evidence proves otherwise.”
Criticism & Opposition
ICE’s position that detainees receive adequate legal access and that conditions have improved directly opposes the judge’s factual findings and the testimonies of former detainees.
Conflicting Reports & Gaps
Sources differ on the scale of overcrowding: the Newsweek account emphasizes a rise to “upward of 100” detainees in hold rooms, while the Daily News cites 175 detainees on a single day and an overall count exceeding 1,000. No source provides a definitive, independently verified total for the entire facility, leaving the exact magnitude of the overcrowding unclear.
Verbatim Quotes
- “Today’s order rightly affirms that ICE cannot continue subjecting people to dehumanizing, abusive conditions at 26 Federal Plaza,” — Molly Biklen, New York Civil Liberties Union
- “The hold rooms have no showers, no beds, no cots, no windows, and lack many other things found in prisons and detention facilities,” — Lewis Kaplan, district judge
- “The Constitution demands humane treatment of everyone in government custody. It requires that they receive due process of law. And it limits the Executive to enforcing the laws that Congress has enacted rather than doing whatever it wishes,” — Lewis Kaplan, district judge
What’s Next
Judge Kaplan ordered DHS to cap detention capacity at 26 Federal Plaza, guarantee attorney access, and maintain on-site medical staffing. No further court dates have been scheduled, but the permanent injunction remains in effect pending compliance monitoring.