On Wednesday, a judge ordered federal officials to improve conditions for detainees at one of the Chicago-area detention centers being used by Donald Trump’s administration as it wages a mass incarceration and deportation agenda that has swept up undocumented immigrants and American citizens alike.
The Chicago Sun-Times reported on a temporary restraining order handed down by U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman concerning the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, which has become the epicenter of Trump’s military-assisted crackdown. The order came after a lawsuit filed on behalf of detainees alleged they had experienced “horrific and inhumane” conditions, including being denied access to food, water, medical care and hygiene.
In issuing the two-week temporary restraining order in the case, U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman wrote detainees at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement center ‘have suffered, and are likely to suffer, irreparable harm’ absent his order.
Among other demands, the judge is requiring officials at the ICE facility to provide detainees with a clean bedding mat ‘with sufficient space to sleep;’ adequate supplies of soap, toilet paper, towels, oral hygiene and menstrual products; a shower for at least every other day; three full meals with water per day; and prescribed medication. Holding cells must be cleaned twice per day.
The order also requires detainees be ensured communication with attorneys in privacy, a list of attorneys available for hire and access to a phone. The feds also will be required to enter each detainee into an ICE online detainee locator system.
After the judge’s order, Assistant Homeland Security Secretary Tricia McLaughlin flatly denied the plaintiffs’ claims, saying in a statement: “All detainees are provided with 3 meals a day, water, and have access to phones to communicate with their family members and lawyers. No one is denied access to proper medical care.”
This is hardly the only immigration facility facing such allegations, as I’ve noted. And at times, the Trump administration has seemed eager to use the notorious conditions of its facilities as a warning to other undocumented immigrants.
I also recently wrote about Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s boast that the use of a “legendary” facility in Louisiana — a notoriously abusive slave plantation turned penitentiary — would encourage some immigrants to leave on their own.