The Conditions In ICE Detention Centers

0:07A record number of people are being detained by Immigration and Customs enforcement. Some of those detainees describe conditions inside some detention centers as cruel and inhumane. Last month, 60 ,000 people were detained by ICE, breaking a record set by the previous Trump administration. A Los Angeles Times analysis of public data found that more than a third of detainees have spent time in a dedicated facility that is over capacity. And now, county jails and ICE field offices are being used to fill those gaps. Jails held about 10 percent of all detainees, or 7 ,100 people on average, each day in July, according to the Prison Policy Initiative.

0:46In downtown Los Angeles, some people arrested by ICE were held in the basement below a federal building known as B-18. In June, ABC7 in L.A. spoke to family members outside those offices. Here's what one man told reporter Annabelle Munoz about the conditions his wife experienced in that field office. The basement is cold, he said, adding there are no beds, not enough food, and that people are sleeping standing because there isn't enough space.

1:16During one call in the middle of the night, he says he heard women screaming. His wife told him a woman fell to the ground and began foaming at the mouth. She believes from dehydration. And it's not just L.A. An ice-filled office in Chantilly, Virginia, has become a makeshift holding facility. as immigration-related arrests swell from President Trump's federal law enforcement crackdown in D.C. So what fallout is the Trump administration's immigration crackdown having on ICE detention centers? And what legal options do detainees have? We get into it after the break. I'm Jen White. You're listening to the 1A Podcast.

1:52Stay with us. We've got a lot to get to.

1:59Let's meet our panel. Joining us is Laura Barone-Lopez. She's a White House correspondent at MSNBC, and she joins us in studio. Laura, welcome back. Good to be here. Also with us is Muzaffar Chishti, Senior Fellow at the Migration Policy Institute. He's also the Director of the MPI Office at New York University School of Law. Muzaffar, welcome. Thanks so much for having me. And Sophia Gregg is a Senior Immigrants Rights Attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia. Sophia, it's great to have you. Thank you for having me. Sophia, I want to start with this ice field office in Chantilly, Virginia.

2:33The ACLU of Virginia is calling for changes after reports of overcrowded rooms, no beds, no showers, and little access to food. What is this field office typically used for? So the Washington field office in Chantilly is usually used to process people for a few hours, take their fingerprints before they're moved on to a dedicated detention facility. In Virginia, we have two major facilities in Farmville and in Caroline that hold collectively 1 ,000 people. But what's happening is that people are being held at Chantilly due to the surge in enforcement in D.C., in Virginia, and they're unable to be moved in a matter of 12 hours, as is required by the policies for the facility.

3:27And so people are being held there for days on end, upwards of seven, eight days in conditions that really just are not suitable for long-term holding. Muzaffar, is there a legal standard for the conditions at ICE detention centers and holding facilities? Yeah, sure. I mean, you know, we know that there has been a significant reform in our prison system over the years. I mean, ACLU ran a prison defense project thanks to them. So while the standards for people with criminal convictions who are serving penal terms have gone up hugely, that there must be basic standards of space, hygiene, access to counsel, access to medical services, the standards in our immigration detention facilities have deteriorated.

4:22And they're much worse than they are for penal facilities. In case of kids and families, there are standards set by court decisions. And we now know that they are increasingly being violated. So it's a very different kind of crisis, exasperated by the number of people who are held in ICE detention facility, which has now reached a record of about 59 ,000 last week. Last month, President Trump federalized D.C.'s police and deployed the National Guard to the district. He said to aid law enforcement. That's despite crime being at a 30-year low. Law enforcement has arrested slightly more than 1 ,000 immigrants across D.C.

5:04since last month. And that accounts for about 38 percent of the arrests they reported for the period. So, Laura, how big of a presence has this immigration enforcement been in D.C.'s federal takeover? It's been a huge part of the federal takeover. And some would argue that it is the point of the federal takeover. Because as you noted, Jen, crime has been decreasing in D.C. and in other cities. But this was a way for the president to ensure that ICE was able to come in, not just ICE agents, but other DHS agents, Homeland Security investigative agents, DEA, ATF, you name it. all work in coordination to arrest immigrants and carry out these immigration-related arrests.

5:50And so this is a big part of the takeover. It's also what is expected, what is happening right now in Chicago. It's what is expected if the administration tries to go into other cities, be it Boston, be it sending National Guard to Memphis, that that is all in order to expand their immigration arrests and then the deportation. And how does the legal decision in L.A. come into play here? Because a federal judge found that the Trump administration violated an important act posse comitatus in deploying the National Guard to California. Right. But then subsequently, it was determined that the administration could carry out roving patrols and arrest people on the basis of ethnicity and race.

6:39So the administration feels emboldened. That being said, they did pull back on Chicago, or at least are holding off a bit on Chicago when it comes to the National Guard, which the administration, which the president would have to do using Title 10. That's federalizing National Guard troops over the objections of the governor there who would not go along with it. But because of that, because he's faces more resistance in a state like Illinois, that is why the president decided he is going to go into a friendlier state. He's going to go to Memphis, which, yes, is a blue city run by a Democratic mayor, but that state is led by a Republican governor.

7:18And so he was able to work with the Republican governor to say, yes, we can put the National Guard in there. So I don't think necessarily that we won't see National Guard go into cities like Chicago, but the administration is feeling things out in states like that where they are meeting more resistance currently. Sophia, connect the dots for us here. What's the through line between this increased number of immigration-related arrests in D.C. and the overcrowding, specifically at the Icefield office in Chantilly, Virginia? Yes. So the Chantilly Icefield office is responsible for Washington, D.C.

7:56and the entire Commonwealth of Virginia. So every ICE arrest that takes place in either D.C. or Virginia, those individuals are processed first at the Chantilly Field office. And what is happening is that due to this mass increase, this dragnet of arrests in both those locations, an enormous amount of people or hundreds of people are going to the Chantilly Field Office where there isn't room, there isn't capacity, and they're waiting days on end to even be processed. So as Laura mentioned, these roving patrols based on someone who appears to be Latino are happening in D.C. Many instances we're hearing reports of people not even being asked their names before they're being arrested.

8:43They're not asked about their immigration status. They're just arresting them based on how they appear or whether or not they have their driver's license with them. And then they go to the Chantilly Field office where they wait with hundreds of other people in crowded conditions before ICE even verifies their identity. and then you know time goes on they try to pressure people to sign their deportation orders and and and they just wait for days until a bed is open at another facility where they can move people to in also crowded conditions for days on end and and we're seeing that people are being moved all over the country.

9:28So if they're arrested in D.C., maybe they go to Ohio for a few days, and then they're moved to Michigan for a few weeks. Well, and how does that movement complicate both where family and friends understand people to be, but also people's ability to access legal representation? It severely undermines their ability to access legal counsel and even have their family be aware of where they are located. The ICE Washington Field Office in Chantilly doesn't allow for attorneys to speak to people in there. So if people are in there for five days, they have no access to counsel. They have no ability to speak to their lawyer.

10:09They may be able to speak to a family member for a short two-minute phone call. But after that, their whereabouts become unknown for those two days while they're in transit, where they're held temporarily at another facility. We're hearing in Riverside Regional Jail for a few days and then moved on to other facilities. So they really don't have access to phones, to alerting their family or their attorneys about where they might be until they finally arrive weeks later at a dedicated detention center, many times in another state far away from their loved ones. Muzaffar, more than half of the people ICE arrested through July in D.C., Maryland, and Virginia have no criminal conviction.

10:56They have no pending criminal charges. That's according to arrest data from ICE obtained, rather, by the Deportation Data Project. In 2024, criminal convictions accounted for 57 percent of arrests in the region. So what do you make of that shift? Well, the national figures that are about close to 70 % have no criminal convictions. That is a huge reversal from trends in the past where the idea was that people with criminal convictions were the priority for being arrested. I mean, there's not much of a mystery here is that this administration has decided to make mass deportation a hallmark of its administration's enforcement policies.

11:40And to achieve that, they are issuing daily quotas on ICE officers. And now the big, beautiful bill has given$45 billion more for detention and for ICE officers hiring. So there's tremendous pressure on ICE officers to do arrests. When you increase arrests, then there is no other way than to detain them. And the detention facilities are scarce. And that's why we have now 125 percent capacity. Laura, you visited the Washington field office in Chantilly and reported on the conditions there. What did you see? So I didn't visit it because you're not allowed in. No one's been allowed in. I think Sophia herself has also not been allowed in.

12:28And I asked, as I was reporting out that story, given the lawyers that I was speaking to, given the immigrants who had family that were detained there for days on end, some for as many as seven days on end that I spoke to. I contacted the Department of Homeland Security. I asked them a series of questions. They denied the conditions there despite multiple accounts from those family members that I spoke to, from the lawyers who have clients there that I spoke to. But when I asked, OK, well, can I visit in the coming days? There was no response. It was silence. And I understand that some lawmakers have attempted to gain access to that facility and have not been given access.

13:12But when I was talking to one undocumented immigrant whose father was held there for seven days, you know, they described a situation where people were only given one meal a day. It was a single burrito. There was lack of access to medical care. They were crammed into these rooms, anywhere from 40 to 80 people. And again, as Sophia was laying out, this facility is a holding facility. That means it's not a long-term detention facility. It is meant for people to be there a mere matter of hours and then be processed out. But earlier this summer, I believe it was around June, was when ICE decided to change their policy.

13:49And they said that we can hold people at these holding facilities for 72 hours now. Of course, based on the people, family members that I spoke to, it's longer than 72 hours. Some people are being held there again for as long as a week or more. And that is violating prior ICE policy. When you talk to, when I've spoken to former DHS and former ICE officials, they just say that's unheard of. Like that should not be allowed. People should be given three meals a day. And these are conditions that are not just happening in Chantilly. You're hearing it when I've spoken to lawyers who are based in Texas, when I've spoken to lawyers who are based in Illinois.

14:32They are seeing and documenting similar conditions, whether it's in holding facilities or in longer-term detention facilities. Let's head to a quick break. Still to come, a number of county jails are being contracted by ICE to hold detainees. What conditions are people experiencing there? That's just ahead.

14:55Now back to our discussion about conditions at ICE detention facilities. A record number of people are being held at ICE detention, 60 ,000 as of last month. That's nearly 20 ,000 more than the average daily ICE detainee population of 41 ,500 allocated in ICE's yearly budget. But Trump border czar Tom Homan says that's still not enough. I've said from day one, we need 100 ,000 beds. That's what we asked for in the big, beautiful bill, and we got it. 100 ,000 beds would create more efficiencies and allow ICE agents to arrest more bad people on the street. And with us hiring at a massive rate, more boots on the ground, meaning we're arresting more criminals, which means we need more beds.

15:33Now, Muzaffar, I just want to highlight first what Tom Homan said there about arresting more criminals. Again, remind us of the breakdown of people who are being held by ICE, put into detention, who actually have no criminal records or have no pending criminal cases. Exactly. So when the president got inaugurated, he said that the target of this administration are dangerous criminals, and Homan kept on repeating that. And what we have seen in practice is that fewer and fewer people with criminal records are being arrested. So today, about more than 70 % lacked any criminal convictions. 25 % had pending criminal charges and 45 % had just regular immigration violators.

16:19So that's why I think there's a strong backlash against ICE practices, because people are seeing on real time that this is not against hardened criminals. And that also goes to the conditions of the jails. One can understand how we can treat hardened criminals who have convictions. But to treat people who are just ordinary immigration violators worse than we treat criminally convicted people is why I think the overreach of this administration is happening. Now, Laura, nearly 90 percent of people in ICE custody are held in facilities run by for-profit private companies. Two of the largest companies are GeoGroup and CoreCivic.

17:06Both are pledging millions to reopen jails and create more beds for ICE. What are conditions like at these privately owned detention centers and how much transparency is there around what happens in them? Well, there's not much transparency around what's happening in the for-profit, what's happening in the other detention facilities. But these are ones that, again, those companies that you talked about, they were big donors to President Trump's campaign. So they were looking for this administration to come in and do exactly what they promised, which was to increase the number of people in detention because then they were hoping that they were going to be able to get these contracts from the Department of Homeland Security.

17:52And now the Department of Homeland Security has the money to do this, to open these for-profit prisons, detention facilities with GeoGroup, with other for-profit prisons in order to detain as many people as they possibly want to. And we're seeing different ones pop up across the country. We're seeing Alligator Alcatraz, which is what they call it in Florida. There is a new facility that is expected to open in Indiana by the end of the month, and that can hold potentially 1 ,000 or more beds. And so the administration is moving very quickly, whether it's with private companies or other state and local partners in order to open as many of these as possible.

18:41Well, Sophia, CoreCivic purchased Farmville Detention Center in Prince Edward County, Virginia, for$67 million in July. I want you to just help us better understand the role these companies are playing in the infrastructure of ICE detention in Virginia and how much money is at play. Yes, so CoreCivicBot, as you said, CoreCivicBot Farmville Detention Center, which has around 700 to 800 beds. But what we're seeing is that in following and investigating where people are going from Chantilly, a lot of them are going to Farmville. And we're hearing reports that even people are being held in big rooms similar to the conditions that they experience in Chantilly, where they're just given a cot in a room with one bed, 100 people in a single room, where they all share one toilet.

19:37And what we know is that these companies, CoreCivic, and even the local counties that are contracting with ICE are getting paid per day per person, anywhere from$200 to $350 per person per day. It creates an incentive for them to hold as many people as possible to, obviously, to make as much money as they can to bill back to the government. for those services. And then obviously, given the increase in the capacity that they are creating in these facilities, conditions deteriorate. There's not enough medical staff to support all the people that are there. In Farmville, we know that there's only one doctor who is in charge of all medical issues that may happen at the facility.

20:40And as the population grows above 700 and beyond, it's just not possible that conditions and that people's medical care can be taken care of efficiently. And we know that the deterioration for basic necessities is happening. Luzavar, we heard Laura talk about the lack of transparency around what's happening inside these facilities. What watchdogs exist to monitor conditions at ICE facilities? Well, many of the watchdogs throughout the administration have been dispensed with in this administration. So to rely on independent inspector generals for the conditions now, I think, is a matter of the past.

21:26But we also know that in the past, when there were government investigators who looked at the conditions in these detention, they found them satisfactory. And every non-governmental study that was done found that there were significant deteriorating conditions in these facilities. So the only access now we have about any information are lawyers who speak to the people inside the detention facilities. That's why the importance of lawyers in these cases now is paramount. And within the places that people are being detained, lack of counsel is a real issue. And I think that unless that increases, we'll have less and less transparency.

22:09Well, that brings me to reporting from the Miami Herald that found that 800 people detained at what the Trump administration and Florida officials call alligator Alcatraz appear to be missing from ISIS online database. 400 people are on the database with no location provided. Lawyers and family members report being unable to locate or reach them. Most of our, how common are situations like this and how up to date is ISIS database of detainees? Well, we actually, the number that you quoted, about 60 ,000, many of us believe they don't include people in places like alligator alcatraz. They are held in what we call 287G facilities, which don't necessarily make it to the ICE data.

22:53So there's total lack of transparency, even about the numbers. And this did not used to be, frankly, that common, but it's becoming more and more common as the numbers have increased and they're dispersed all across the country. Just for your listeners to know that a huge number of these people are being detained in two federal courts of jurisdictions in our country. which is the 5th and the 11th, and which are actually quite hospitable to the actions of the administration. And that's why the tendency of this administration is to ship people to those jurisdictions. Laura, I'm curious how all of this, how it complicates your reporting.

23:41Because if you're not getting answers from DHS, if you're not able to speak directly to detainees, You have to rely on second or third-hand information because you can't contact these people. You're not being allowed inside the facilities. How does it complicate your ability to share with the public what's happening? It's incredibly difficult, and I can't imagine what it's like for lawyers who are trying to get access to their clients, which I'm sure Sophia can talk to as well. Because when I'm talking to attorneys across the country, immigration attorneys, whether they're in L.A., again, or Texas, Louisiana, you name it, Georgia, they sound incredibly frustrated and sometimes beaten down because they are trying to get access to people and to help them to make sure that they receive due process.

24:31and they can't even get access to their clients, or they're trying to help lawyers in other states who originally were representing one of the detainees or someone who was arrested, and then that person has been subsequently moved to another facility in a different state, to another facility in a third state. And so you hear lawyers trying to communicate with each other. Look, it's difficult because you have to talk to, this is a part of the job, You have to talk to as many people as possible, period. But right now, it's really the reporting is based on conversations, not just with lawyers, but with immigrants, with family members of those who have been detained and trying to understand what they're going through and how difficult this process has become for them.

25:20And that's really how we're piecing it together, because when I ask the administration basic questions, whether it's the White House or DHS, basic questions almost every week of how many people have been arrested in a given area based on their ICE operations, how many of those people, how many of those are immigration or less compared to other arrests. they do not give hard numbers and they don't give full reports on what exactly people are being arrested for. So there's no way to really verify their data until, you know, months later, ICE releases data through a FOIA request and so on. So that makes it very hard.

26:02I'm curious to hear from you, Sophia, what we're hearing about people going missing while in ICE detention, not being able to contact attorneys or family members, the poor conditions in these holding facilities. how that squares for you with the stated role of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and how people are supposed to be treated as they move through the immigration process. Yes, I don't think it squares with it at all. The conditions for people held in immigration detention, immigration detention is civil, not criminal. and the conditions are not allowed to be punitive, but that's exactly what we're seeing.

26:49They are punitive. They're not given access to counsel. They're not giving sufficient food, access to medical care, et cetera. Yet at the same time, when they're not able to seek legal advice, they're being pressured to sign their deportation orders. They're being told, you're gonna remain in these types of conditions for the entirety of your immigration case unless you sign your deportation and you can go home back to your home country and waive your rights and you'll be home in a matter of days. So there's a huge issue here where people who have come to this country to flee and seeking safety here are then being persecuted by our own government and being forced to either withstand the human rights abuses that are happening within these facilities for days on end without legal counsel or give up their rights completely.

27:51And it's truly just, it's a runaround due process that they should be afforded. The immigration law and constitutional law require that people be given due process and access to counsel to fight their cases to remain in the country lawfully. Well, and Muzaffar, I just want to bring you in briefly. How does this increase in the arrest and detention of immigrants and the tools ICE is employing complicate the process of accessing legal pathways to citizenship? Well, the legal pathways of lawful immigration are limited. I mean, they're basically, you have to be, you know, you have to have a family that sponsors you, and there are limited number of family relationships, or you have to have an employer to sponsor you.

28:42And there are numbers limited. There are limits on each country. So therefore, there are very limited pathways for people to come. But we've also seen ICE agents detaining people as they're showing up or leaving immigration hearings, trying to follow the legal pathway to gain status in the U.S. Well, most of them, to be fair, are in the court proceedings seeking asylum. So what this administration has done, totally unprecedented, is that it has advised ICE lawyers that they should terminate their proceedings as the government is not pursuing a claim against you. And they quickly arrested and put in expedited removal, which is a fast track action to move people through removal process.