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The Department of Homeland Security on Monday blasted a federal judge’s order requiring it to immediately improve conditions at its ICE processing facility in Baltimore — including reducing the number of detainees held there at one time, and improving access to food, hygiene, and medical care — telling Digital that the court’s determination of any “subprime” conditions or overcrowding are “false.”
“Illegal aliens in custody are provided food, water, blankets, and hygiene products,” a spokesperson for DHS said Monday, alleging that ICE “has higher detention standards than most U.S. prisons that hold actual U.S. citizens,” including access to “comprehensive” medical care.
The characterization comes hours after a federal judge in Maryland issued a preliminary injunction Monday ordering ICE to either drastically improve conditions at its Baltimore processing center or find a new facility to “humanely” and legally hold the migrants before transferring them to a longer-term detention center.
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ICE Director Todd Lyons. (Suzanne Kreiter/The Boston Globe via Getty Images andJohn Moore/Getty Images )
U.S. District Judge Julie Rubin, a Biden appointee, sided with plaintiffs Monday in ruling that Baltimore’s holding center conditions are “unhygienic, unsanitary,” and ultimately, unconstitutional.
Rubin used a 67-page preliminary injunction to carefully tick through a long list of egregious conditions alleged by lawyers for plaintiffs over the last 10 months, including allegations of squalid, unsanitary holding, severe overcrowding, and a lack of medical screening, access to medical care, and necessary treatment — which the judge noted could lead to liability issues, or “in the worst-case scenario, fatalities.”
“The debated issue here is not defendants’ legitimate governmental interest; it is that defendants apparently dispense with even rudimentary decent, humane treatment of civil detainees, and so too their constitutional rights as a result,” Rubin said in the preliminary injunction, which applies to all current and future detainees at the holding facility operated by Baltimore’s ICE Field Office.
She sided with plaintiffs in ruling that the conditions in Baltimore are “unlawfully punitive” and reflect a “deliberate indifference to the health, safety, and medical needs” on behalf of the government, in violation of the Fifth Amendment and due process protections granted under the U.S. Constitution.
Rubin also rejected the notion that ICE detainees and illegal immigrants are not entitled to due process, citing the Supreme Court precedent under Zadvydas v. Davis, which holds that such protections apply to “all ‘persons’” within the U.S. “including [noncitizens], whether their presence here is lawful, unlawful, temporary, or permanent.”
A DHS spokesperson told Digital that migrants detained at the ICE holding center in Baltimore are granted “comprehensive” health care, including “medical, dental, and mental health services as available, and access to medical appointments and 24-hour emergency care,” and rejected claims made by plaintiffs and the judge.
“This is the best healthcare tha[t] many aliens have received in their entire lives,” the spokesperson added.
Rubin, in the court order, does not appear to back that contention.
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President Donald Trump and the logo for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) are seen side-by-side in this split image. (Photos by Getty Images) (Getty Images)
“This is not a case of a prisoner lacking access to a clean toilet for a period of days, nor is it a case where a pretrial detainee cannot shower and is not provided with hygiene items …” Rubin said in the preliminary injunction, which comes after one year of status hearings, amended complaints, and declarations provided to the court from Trump administration officials and others.
“Rather, the conditions here are compounded: civilly detained people are stuffed into unclean cells by the dozens, without basic hygiene essentials, while exposed to a virtually open unclean toilet (and those detained making use of same),” Rubin said.
“These conditions woefully fail to comport with ‘contemporary standards of decency,” she continued.
DHS also rejected claims of inadequate medical care, including complaints from plaintiffs’ lawyers and cited by the court in which individuals with serious medical conditions such as diabetes, high blood pressure, HIV, leukemia, and broken bones were denied medications or medical attention.
Government records cited by the judge show that between February and September 2025, just eight out of 3,250 detainees held at the Baltimore ICE facility had been transported 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 presidential term.
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The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) logo is seen in a federal building. (Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
In August, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan issued an emergency order requiring ICE to swiftly address allegations of filthy, overcrowded cells and prolonged stays at an ICE processing facility in New York City. The following month, he slapped ICE with a more lasting preliminary injunction seeking to codify those changes.
And in Minnesota, a federal judge last month issued a temporary restraining order requiring ICE to grant detainees at its Whipple Federal Building holding center access to counsel, attorney-client visits, and a 72-hour notice period before transferring detainees out of the state.
The administration has not yet indicated whether it will appeal the judge’s ruling. Still, DHS officials sharply rejected the allegations of improper treatment, telling Digital that being in detention “is 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 the U.S. “is offering illegal aliens $2,600 and a free flight to self-deport,” as former DHS Secretary Kristi Noem noted during congressional testimony last week.
“If not, you will be arrested and deported without a chance to return,” they added.
