CHICAGO — A new federal lawsuit alleges detained people are suffering from “horrific and inhumane” conditions at the ICE processing facility in suburban Broadview and that the federal government is concealing that mistreatment by blocking elected officials, attorneys and the press from accessing the facility.
According to an emergency 76-page class action lawsuit filed Thursday, detained people at the facility are being denied water, food, medical care, hygiene and other basic necessities in an extremely cramped facility that smells strongly of feces, urine and body odor.
Federal agents there are treating detained people “abhorrently, depriving them of sleep, privacy, menstrual products, and the ability to shower,” according to a news release.
Detained people are also being blocked from making confidential calls to their attorneys — a violation of their constitutional rights, according to the suit.
“This is a vicious abuse of power and gross violation of basic human rights by ICE and the Department of Homeland Security. It must end now,” said Alexa Van Brunt, an attorney with the MacArthur Justice Center.
The MacArthur Justice Center is one of three organizations representing detained people in the suit, along with the ACLU of Illinois and the Chicago office of Eimer Stahl.
In the suit, the attorneys take issue with the federal government repeatedly barring elected officials, journalists, attorneys and religious leaders from accessing the facility, which attorneys say has created a “black-box” effect “in which to disappear people from the U.S. court and immigration systems.”
For example, local Democratic members of Illinois’ congressional delegation — Danny Davis, Jesús “Chuy” García, Delia Ramirez and Jonathan Jackson — were all denied entry to Broadview when they asked for a tour. Earlier this month, the congresspeople were seeking basic information about facility conditions from the ICE field director and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, such as the date of the last inspection, according to the Sun-Times.
“DHS personnel have denied access to counsel, legislators, and journalists so that the harsh and deteriorating conditions at the facility can be shielded from public view,” Kevin Lee, legal director for the ACLU of Illinois, said in a statement.
“These conditions are unconstitutional and threaten to coerce people into sacrificing their rights without the benefit of legal advice and a full airing of their legal defenses.”
The ICE facility in Broadview is a “serving processing center,” meaning people picked up by federal immigration agents are only supposed to be held there for a few hours before they’re released, deported or transferred to a detention facility.
But a Sun-Times investigation found that the facility has become a de facto detention center as President Donald Trump’s immigration “blitz” has intensified.
During the first seven months of this year, ICE held 143 people for two or more days at Broadview, the Sun-Times reported. In 2023, the average hold time was five hours.
The Sun-Times story highlighted harsh conditions mirrored in the lawsuit. Detained people described sleeping on crowded cold floors or plastic chairs, being denied soap and toothpaste and given cold bread to eat.
Several plaintiffs in the lawsuit said they spent up to six days in the facility, which was so crowded that people were laying on top of each other and in the bathroom area.
ICE officers are physically and verbally abusive to people who are detained, according to the lawsuit. One man said he witnessed an elderly disabled man who is hemiplegic soil himself after officers refused to help him use the bathroom. The officers didn’t give him a change of clothes and the man was forced to stay in his soiled clothes for several days, according to the lawsuit.
“They treated us like animals, or worse than animals, because no one treats their pets like that,” one woman said in the lawsuit.
With the federal lawsuit filed this week, attorneys are demanding the federal government address the “inhumane” conditions at Broadview and provide detainees with ready access to counsel.
Broadview has also been the site of regular protests in recent weeks. So far, about 70 protesters have been arrested by Illinois State Police, the Cook County Sheriff’s Office and the Broadview Police Department, according to the Cook County Sheriff’s Office. Most have been charged with resisting arrest. A few have been charged with battery to a police officer and disorderly conduct.
Records show the Illinois State Police have made the majority of arrests outside Broadview since early October, when Gov. JB Pritzker brought in local law enforcement to manage public safety around the facility. Protesters say they’ve been attacked and silenced by state police officers while trying to exercise their First Amendment rights.
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