CHICAGO — A federal judge on Wednesday ordered authorities to improve a Chicago-area immigration facility after a group of detainees sued, alleging they were being kept in “inhumane” conditions.
The order will be in effect for 14 days. It requires officials to provide detainees at a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in the west Chicago suburb of Broadview with a clean bedding mat and sufficient space to sleep, soap, towels, toilet paper, toothbrushes, toothpaste, menstrual products and prescribed medications.
“People shouldn’t be sleeping next to overflowing toilets,” U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman said. “They should not be sleeping on top of each other.”
The order says the holding rooms at the facility must be cleaned twice a day. Detainees must be allowed to shower at least every other day and should have three full meals and bottled water upon request.
Gettleman required authorities to allow detainees to call lawyers in private with no cost and provide them with a list of pro bono attorneys in English and Spanish. Agents are also barred from misrepresenting documents provided to detainees to sign.
The judge had called the alleged conditions “unnecessarily cruel” after a hearing Tuesday about overflowing toilets, crowded cells, no beds and water that “tasted like sewer.”
He said he found the witnesses “highly credible,” adding he was moved by the seriousness of the conditions.
Gettleman requested a status report by noon Friday on how authorities are fulfilling the requirements.
A message left Wednesday for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement wasn’t immediately returned.
In court this week, Attorney Jana Brady of the Justice Department acknowledged there are no beds at the Broadview building because it was not intended to be a long-term detention site.
Authorities have “improved the operations” over the past few months, she said, adding there has been a “learning curve.”
“The conditions are not sufficiently serious,” Brady told the judge.
