Judge Orders ICE to Improve Squalid Manhattan Lockup Conditions

The temporary order at 26 Federal Plaza will require the Trump administration to immediately improve conditions there.

This article originally appeared in The City.

By Gwynne Hogan & Haidee Chu 

The City 

August 13, 2025

NEW YORK - A federal judge Tuesday issued a temporary restraining order, requiring the Trump administration to immediately improve conditions for immigrants inside the 10th floor detention area of 26 Federal Plaza in Lower Manhattan as well as provide access to confidential calls for attorneys. 

In a written order Tuesday afternoon, Judge Lewis Kaplan ordered the Trump administration to allot at least 50 square feet of space per person detained inside the holding area, and to provide clean bed mats, three meals a day, and access to hygiene products as well as confidential calls with legal counsel. The order lasts through August 26. 

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, which includes Immigration and Customs Enforcement, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on the judge’s ruling. 

Kaplan’s order comes after Make the Road, the New York Civil Liberties Union and the American Civil Liberties Union sued Friday, requesting a judge step in to force ICE to mitigate conditions. 

The complaint followed weeks of mounting complaints from immigrants and their advocates about inhumane conditions ICE’s holding area on the 10th floor of the federal building, the central processing office for immigrants detained by ICE in New York City and surrounding areas.

A dozen immigrants who had been detained inside provided sworn affidavits describing unsanitary conditions, overcrowding, dramatic temperature fluctuations and limited access to food, water, and medication, all while detainees were denied visits and private calls with their attorneys.

NYPD and private security stand at the barricaded entrance of 26 Federal Plaza. May 30, 2025.

‘I’d Like to Take the Fifth’

Kaplan had grilled Trump administration attorney Jeffrey Oestericher earlier in the day about conditions on the 10th floor, which ICE has barred members of Congress from entering despite a law guaranteeing their access to ICE detention facilities.

Kaplan referenced accounts in multiple affidavits that mentioned as many as 90 people in a single holding room. Several described so many people inside a single room they had to try to sleep sitting up. 

He also cited a video, first posted by THE CITY last month, that showed a crowded holding room filled with detainees. 

“I have no present basis to deny. Obviously, they're estimating. But correct, I can say presently, for purposes of the TRO, there are 26 individuals total in the four rooms combined,” Oestericher said. 

Kaplan pressed Oestericher about how many people had been detained there in recent days and weeks.

 

“I don't have that information. There are logs. I don't presently have that information, but that information is available,” he said. “There are logs that would be able to answer that question. I just don't have that answer as we sit here right now.”

Kaplan went on, pressing about whether ICE might have tried to do damage control — asking if it was a “reasonable inference” that the government moved to decrease the number of people on the 10th floor after the video became public. 

“I'd like to take the fifth on the inference, your Honor. I don't know whether that's a fair inference or not.”

Kaplan also asked about specific cases described in the affidavits, including the account of 20-year-old Joselyn Chipantiza Sisalema who said she spent five days in clothing covered in menstrual blood, when guards offered the entire room of women just two menstrual pads. 

“I read that as well, your honor,” Oestericher said. “I don't have a basis to comment, but we totally agree that necessary hygiene products should be available.”

In an affidavit, Nancy Zanello, the assistant field office director of ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations, described four holding rooms with a total square footage of 1,821 square feet as having a maximum capacity of  154 people according to the “fire marshall.” By Monday evening, she wrote, just 24 people were being held there.

It’s not clear if she was referring to the FDNY’s fire marshalls, who have said they don’t have purview to inspect a federal building, and a spokesperson for the FDNY didn’t return a request for comment right away.

But data obtained by the Deportation Data Project from a Freedom of Information Act request shows that ICE exceeded its own capacity restriction, on at least six nights since late May, when ICE arrests in New York City and across the country started spiking. The most recent figures, through the end of July, show 83 people the night of July 28 and 62 on July 29.

During Tuesday’s hearing, Judge Kaplan questioned whether the Trump administration would be able to adhere to a 50 square feet of space per person rule, which would mean at most 16 people in the largest of the four holding rooms.

“Right. It's certainly not a problem presently. And if that is what the court deems necessary, obviously we will comply,” Oestericher replied. 

Hours later, Kaplan’s temporary restraining order indeed deemed it necessary to provide at least 50 square feet of space per person. If officials abide by her order, that would mean the number of people inside the 10th floor would be limited to 36 — if ICE continues to use only the four holding rooms described in court documents. 

‘Like We Were Animals’

Last month, THE CITY reported 415 people were detained on the 10th floor for more than two days during May and June, while 81 people were detained at the hold room for four days or more at a time. At the time, the average length of stay was 29 hours. 

Since then, the average stay inside 26 Federal Plaza has increased to 58 hours, with 596 people detained for more than two days, and 253 detained for more than four. 

Of the 2,286 people who were detained inside 26 Federal Plaza since May 20, 67% had no pending criminal case or any criminal convictions, according to ICE’s internal data obtained by the Deportation Data Project through a Freedom of Information Act request. 

Meanwhile, attorneys submitted three more affidavits on behalf of immigrant detainees Tuesday, including that of Sergio Barco Mercado, a Peruvian asylum seeker, who was arrested Friday after his immigration court hearing inside 26 Federal Plaza, and held until Sunday, at which point, he alleged inhumane conditions still persisted inside. 

“We did not always get enough water,” he described. “There was one guard who would sometimes hold a bottle of water up and people would wait to have him squirt some into our mouths, like we were animals.”