A federal judge issued a slew of orders Wednesday for officials at the immigration processing center in suburban Broadview intended to address the “serious conditions” described inside the building in a lawsuit filed last week.
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.
The order comes a day after the court heard more than three hours of testimony alleging that people were crammed 100 at a time into a holding cell without a hot meal, with nowhere to sleep but a dirty floor near an open toilet. Gettleman said Wednesday that he found the witness testimonies to be “highly credible.”
“People shouldn’t be sleeping in plastic chairs. They shouldn’t be sleeping on the floor,” Gettleman said.
A plaintiffs’ request to inspect the facility was not granted in the order.
In the lawsuit, former detainees at the center described sleeping on cold floors, poor sanitation and clogged toilets that sit in the middle of holding cells with no privacy. Lawyers called it “a breeding ground for illness to spread.”
The class-action lawsuit was filed last week by the MacArthur Justice Center and Roger Baldwin Foundation of ACLU. It alleges that “Broadview is a black hole, and federal officials are acting with impunity inside its walls.”
Government lawyers have recently said the Broadview facility is “not equipped to be an overnight facility.” But the Chicago Sun-Times and WBEZ have since documented how it has been holding people for multiple days at a time.
Gettleman said he tried to word the order in a manner “that honors the discretionary functions of running an institution like this and making it as workable as possible.”
He said the order will not go into effect immediately, noting, “I wouldn’t expect it to be at the snap of a finger.” Gettleman told the government lawyers to provide him an update by noon Friday on the status of the Department of Homeland Security’s ability to comply with the order.
Also Wednesday, plaintiffs’ lawyers said they’re looking for more information that will give them a better understanding of the space inside the detention facility. That includes video footage from inside the building, a list of detainees sent there, the documentation shared with detainees upon their arrival and policies governing the facility.
The next hearing in the case was scheduled for Nov. 19.
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