Bay Area Lawyers Ask Court to Stop ICE From Keeping Immigrants in Holding Rooms for Days

Civil rights advocates argued in federal court on Monday that immigrants are being detained in unacceptable conditions in the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office in downtown San Francisco.

Asylum seekers and others detained while showing up for their immigration court date have been kept for days at a time in rooms meant to hold people for less than 12 hours, according to advocates.

The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area — one of the groups that has sued the federal government — said that this practice violates both federal law and the Constitution, and it is asking the court to provide immediate relief to detained immigrants.

The lawsuit alleges that ICE has kept immigrants detained at the 630 Sansome St. holding site in “a state of sleep deprivation.” Plaintiffs say they were forced to sleep on either the floor or metal benches, with only a sheet of plastic for cover in cold rooms where the lights were kept on 24 hours a day.

“These spaces cannot hold people safely for more than 12 hours, fundamentally, as a matter of operations and a matter of physical layout,” LCCRSF attorney Marissa Hatton declared at federal court in San José.

One plaintiff, Martin Hernandez Torres, told lawyers that federal agents deprived him of his blood pressure medication while he was detained overnight, resulting in a hypertensive crisis that may have left him with permanent brain damage.

For years, ICE has kept individuals awaiting deportation or a hearing in hold rooms like the one in downtown San Francisco for up to 12 hours at a time — as required by the agency’s own standards.

But as it ramped up operations under the Trump administration in recent months, ICE leadership issued a waiver in June for its own rule and allowed for detentions of up to several days.

LCCRSF and other civil groups argue that the federal government made this change without making changes to its procedures and practices “necessary for longer-term incarceration,” like making bedding, medication or hygiene products available to detainees.

Officials with ICE said their agencies do not comment on pending litigation, but the attorney representing the federal government, Douglas Earl Johns, told Biden-appointed Judge P. Casey Pitts that the waiver to the 12-hour rule “is applied operationally on an individual basis.”

Earlier this year, several members of Congress and immigrant justice groups in New York similarly accused ICE of keeping immigrants detained in “inhumane conditions” after detaining them at their court hearings.

Civil rights groups are asking the court to freeze ICE’s waiver of its 12-hour rule and require federal agents to provide detained individuals with basic medical screenings, prescribed medication and improve overall conditions in the holding rooms.

The court did not make a decision on Monday, but the next scheduled hearing is set for Dec. 9.

KQED’s Tyche Hendricks contributed to this report.