Judge orders ICE to improve Chicago ‘prison’ after immigrants break down in court describing ‘black hole’ inside
A federal judge has ordered Homeland Security officials to improve conditions inside a Chicago-area immigrant detention facility where detainees say they are treated “worse than animals” and packed into unsanitary holding cells “like a pile of fish.”
Wednesday’s temporary restraining order from District Judge Robert W. Gettleman follows several hours of courtroom testimony from five people who have been crammed inside the Broadview Processing Center, a focal point for protests against Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda.
“It has really become a prison,” Gettleman said during a hearing Tuesday.
In court filings and in haunting courtroom testimony, detainees described being forced to sleep sitting upright or on urine-soaked floors next to clogged toilets under bright lights. “It was too much,” one person said while crying on the stand.
“Broadview is a black hole, and federal officials are acting with impunity inside its walls,” according to a lawsuit brought by civil rights groups on ..
