DHS fires back on Biden-appointed judge’s ‘false’ ICE facility claims
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On Monday, the Department of Homeland Security overturned a federal judge’s order requiring immediate improvement of conditions at the ICE processing facility in Baltimore (including reducing the number of people held there at one time and improving access to food, hygiene and medical care), telling Fox News Digital that the court’s finding of any “subprime” conditions or overcrowding was “incorrect.”
“Illegal aliens in custody are provided with food, water, blankets, and hygiene products,” a DHS spokesperson said Monday, claiming that ICE “has higher detention standards than most U.S. prisons that house bona fide U.S. citizens,” including access to “comprehensive” medical care.
The designation came just hours after a federal judge in Maryland issued a preliminary injunction Monday ordering ICE to greatly improve conditions at the Baltimore processing center or find a new facility to hold immigrants “humanely” and legally before transferring them to a longer-term detention center.
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ICE Director Todd Lyons. (Boston Globe and John Moore/Getty Images via Suzanne Kreiter/Getty Images)
U.S. District Judge Julie Rubin, a Biden appointee, sided with the plaintiffs in ruling Monday that conditions at the Baltimore detention center were “unhygienic, unsanitary” and ultimately unconstitutional.
Rubin used a 67-page injunction to carefully tick off a long list of egregious conditions alleged by attorneys for the plaintiffs over the past 10 months, including allegations of squalid, unsanitary detention, severe overcrowding, and lack of medical screening, access to medical care, and necessary treatment; These could lead to liability issues or “in the worst case scenario, deaths,” the judge noted.
“What is at issue here is not the defendants’ legitimate government interests; it is the defendants’ renounced primitive, humane treatment of civilian detainees and, as a result, even their constitutional rights,” Rubin wrote in the injunction, which applies to all current and future detainees at the detention facility operated by Baltimore’s ICE Field Office. he said.
He sided with the plaintiffs in the ruling that conditions in Baltimore were “unlawfully punitive” and reflected “a willful indifference to health, safety, and medical needs” on the government’s part, violating Fifth Amendment and due process protections provided under the U.S. Constitution.
Rubin also rejected the idea that ICE detainees and illegal immigrants do not have the right to due process, citing precedent from the Supreme Court below. Zadvydas v. Davis, recognizes that such protections apply to “all ‘persons’” in the United States. [noncitizens]”Is their presence here legal, illegal, temporary or permanent?”
A DHS spokesperson told Fox News Digital that immigrants detained at the ICE holding center in Baltimore are provided “comprehensive” health care, including “medical, dental and mental health services to the extent available, and access to medical appointments and 24-hour emergency care,” and rejected the allegations made by the plaintiffs and the judge.
“This is the best healthcare[t] has taken many aliens in their lifetime,” the spokesperson added.
Rubin does not appear to support this claim in the court decision.
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President Donald Trump and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) logo are seen side by side in this split image. (Photos by Getty Images) (Getty Images)
“This is not a case of a prisoner not having access to a clean restroom for days, or a pretrial detainee not being able to shower and not being provided with hygiene supplies,” Rubin said in the injunction, which came after a year of status hearings, amended complaints and court filings by Trump administration officials and others.
“Rather, the conditions here are even more complex: civilian detainees are herded into dozens of dirty cells without basic sanitary requirements, while being exposed to a nearly open, dirty toilet (including detainees who use the same one),” Rubin said.
“These conditions, unfortunately, do not comply with ‘contemporary moral standards,'” he continued.
DHS also rejected allegations of inadequate medical care from plaintiffs’ attorneys, including complaints that people with serious medical conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, HIV, leukemia and broken bones were denied medication or medical attention.
Government records cited by the judge show that of the 3,250 detainees held at a Baltimore ICE facility between February and September 2025, only eight were transferred to a hospital for medical needs.
Rubin is not the first federal judge to order U.S. immigration officials to immediately improve conditions at ICE processing centers, or “holding” centers, across the country during Trump’s second term as president.
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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) logo is seen on a federal building. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
In August, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan issued an emergency order requiring ICE to quickly address allegations of dirty, overcrowded cells and prolonged stays at an ICE processing facility in New York City. The following month, he granted ICE a more permanent injunction in an effort to enact those changes.
And in Minnesota, a federal judge last month issued a temporary restraining order requiring ICE to give detainees at Whipple Federal Building access to an attorney, attorney-client visits and a 72-hour notice period before transferring detainees out of state.
The administration has not yet indicated whether it will appeal the judge’s decision. Still, DHS officials harshly denied allegations of improper treatment, telling Fox News Digital that detention was “a choice.”
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“We encourage all illegal aliens to take control of their departure with the CBP Home App,” they said, noting that, as former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem testified to Congress last week, the United States “offers illegal aliens $2,600 and a free flight to self-deport.”
“Otherwise you will be arrested and deported with no chance of returning,” they added.
