ICE Violates Policy by Detaining Detainees in Secret Rooms for Days

(KROME PROCESSING CENTER, FLORIDA) US Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been holding immigrants in secretive “hold rooms” for days or even weeks, in violation of its own detention policy and far beyond stated limits that were designed for short stops before transfer or release, according to detainees, internal tallies and court filings this year. The prolonged confinement, described by people inside as inhumane, overcrowded and dangerous, has triggered class-action lawsuits and court orders, even as ICE insists it is meeting detention standards and safeguarding the people in its custody.

For years, ICE’s detention policy capped time in hold rooms at 12 hours. In early 2025, after Donald Trump returned to the presidency, the agency issued a waiver allowing up to 72 hours of detention in these temporary spaces. But records and accounts from multiple cities show people held well beyond even that expanded limit. At the Krome Processing Center in Florida, more than 600 people were held in holding rooms in mid-February 2025, with 62% exceeding the 12-hour maximum. In New York City’s ICE office at 26 Federal Plaza, 191 people were held in early July 2025, with an average stay of 32 hours and some remaining up to 10 days. In Baltimore, 92% of hold room detentions lasted more than 12 hours, with an average stay of 53 hours. Nationwide, the Deportation Data Project found that 18% of detainees in hold rooms were kept longer than 12 hours in 2025, up from 4% in 2024.

The conditions described from inside these rooms are stark. Detainees report sleeping on floors or chairs, often next to toilets in plain view, with no beds, pillows or blankets. The rooms lack showers, and people say they often go days without bathing or clean clothes. Food is scarce, with some reporting only one or two small meals a day. Medical care is delayed or absent, with advocates and whistleblowers tying the gaps to illness and, in some cases, death. In Manhattan, a Venezuelan immigrant said in a viral video:

“They treat us like dogs.”

At Krome, a Mexican immigrant recorded:

“We’re practically kidnapped. There are people who have been held for more than 30 days and have not been processed.”

ICE has rejected claims that it is failing to meet its own detention standards. In a statement, the agency said:

“All detainees receive adequate food, medical treatment, showers, blankets, and have the opportunity to communicate with their families and attorneys […] Most of our facilities have higher detention standards than most U.S. prisons, which house American citizens. Ensuring the safety and well-being of those in our custody is a top priority.”

The agency’s written standards, including its rules on short-term custody and the use of hold rooms, are publicly posted on the ICE detention standards site. But reports from New York, Baltimore and Florida provide a rare, contemporaneous picture of what detainees say is actually happening across field offices as transfers slow and caseloads rise.

In New York, detainees held at 26 Federal Plaza described being “packed” for a week or more, sleeping “on the floor next to the toilet” in cells that are “either freezing or oppressively hot,” and receiving “at most only two small meals a day.” Those descriptions have been cited in court as immigration attorneys recount blocked access to clients and obstacles to basic legal communication. Judges have ordered ICE to improve conditions, reduce overcrowding, and provide sleeping mats and attorney access in Manhattan, pushing the agency to explain its reliance on extended short-term confinement in one of its busiest urban offices.

The pattern extends beyond New York. At Krome, the internal count of more than 600 people in hold rooms in mid-February underscores how quickly the short-term areas have become de facto detention sites. People here described days without showers, shivering or sweating under harsh lights, and a mundane routine of sitting, waiting and pleading for medical checks that did not come. With regular detention beds near capacity and transfers delayed, migrants are spending nights in bare rooms never designed for long stays. In Baltimore, where 92% of hold room detentions exceeded 12 hours this year and the average stay was 53 hours, detainees reported similar conditions and warned that prolonged confinement left them disoriented and unwell.

The health risks are not abstract. Fourteen people have died in ICE detention centers in the first nine months of Trump’s second term. While those deaths were recorded at detention centers rather than hold rooms, the trend has alarmed medical experts familiar with the system and raised questions about whether long waits in short-term custody are compounding an already fragile care pipeline. Dora B. Schriro, former director of ICE’s Office of Detention Policy and Planning, said:

“It’s very likely that there will be an increase in deaths in detention and serious medical conditions.”

Advocates, including groups that monitor detention conditions and litigate on behalf of immigrants, say the same problems documented for years inside formal facilities—dangerous conditions, medical neglect and weak oversight—are now surfacing in the temporary spaces where people are supposed to spend only hours.

Legal challenges have mounted as people held in hold rooms seek relief through the courts. On August 11, 2025, Sergio Barco Mercado filed a class action lawsuit, Barco Mercado v. Noem, challenging prolonged detention and “crowded, squalid, and punitive” conditions at 26 Federal Plaza and alleging violations of constitutional rights. Filings in that case detail extended stays, blocked attorney access and the lack of basic hygiene, relying on affidavits from detainees and counsel who describe clients who went days without sleep or medical review. On September 18, 2025, another class action, Pablo Sequen v. Kaiser, was filed against ICE’s San Francisco field office, accusing the agency of holding immigrants for up to six days in similar conditions that led to sleep deprivation, medical neglect and denial of access to counsel. Federal judges in related proceedings have ordered ICE to curb overcrowding and improve basic conditions, particularly in Manhattan, where attorneys said they struggled to find clients in hold rooms that were effectively off-limits.

ICE’s shift in early 2025, when it issued a waiver to permit up to 72 hours in hold rooms, was presented internally as a practical response to crowded detention centers and choked transfer pipelines. In practice, people are staying far longer. Advocates warn that the expansion has created a shadow detention system—short-term rooms operating as long-term custody without the safeguards that apply to formal detention centers. The Deportation Data Project’s national analysis, showing that 18% of hold room detainees in 2025 were kept longer than 12 hours, up from 4% in 2024, indicates a sharp break from past practices, and the proportion is higher still in cities like Baltimore and New York.

Inside the rooms, the delays compound. People described waiting for a supervisor to sign off on a transfer that never came, or for transportation that repeatedly slipped from morning to evening and back to morning again. When food arrived, they said it was sporadic and small; when medical staff appeared, it was brief and cursory, if they came at all. A detainee in Manhattan recorded the line

“They treat us like dogs,”

a phrase that ricocheted across Spanish-language social media among family members tracking their relatives through fragments of messages and hurried calls. Here in Florida, a man’s voice captured in a recording from Krome said,

“We’re practically kidnapped. There are people who have been held for more than 30 days and have not been processed,”

a claim that has alarmed attorneys who say release decisions and referrals to immigration court are being pushed back without explanation.

The rise in prolonged hold room stays has changed how immigrants experience detention policy on the ground. Instead of being processed quickly and routed to a detention center with beds, showers and medical facilities—or released with check-ins and a court date—many are finding themselves in windows-free rooms with fixed benches and concrete floors, waiting to see whether they will get a mat, a sandwich or a phone call. Attorneys say the uncertainty makes it harder to pursue relief because clients disappear into a part of the system without reliable access, and families have no way to know whether loved ones are in a local office’s basement or 100 miles away at a county jail under ICE contract.

ICE disputes that portrayal, pointing to written standards that require food, medical screening and reasonable access to counsel. The agency’s statement—“All detainees receive adequate food, medical treatment, showers, blankets, and have the opportunity to communicate with their families and attorneys […] Most of our facilities have higher detention standards than most U.S. prisons, which house American citizens. Ensuring the safety and well-being of those in our custody is a top priority”—is now being tested in court, where judges have demanded documentation of improvements and proof that detainees have sleeping mats, showers and a way to meet their lawyers. In New York, those demands have been most explicit, with orders to reduce overcrowding and facilitate attorney access in 26 Federal Plaza.

Advocacy organizations argue that the harshness of hold room conditions is not incidental. They say the prolonged stays are designed, or at least allowed, to pressure people into accepting deportation rather than fighting their cases. Whether that is the intent or an unintended outcome of a gridlocked system, the effect is similar: exhausted detainees, ill from lack of sleep and basic hygiene, who are more likely to sign papers they do not fully understand or skip legal options. Whistleblowers and the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general have, over several years, documented dangerous conditions, medical neglect and a lack of accountability across ICE facilities, adding context to this year’s reports from hold rooms that many in the public had not heard of before 2025.

The human consequences are concentrated in places like this processing center and in federal buildings like 26 Federal Plaza, where the line between temporary and long-term custody has blurred. In New York, lawyers described people “packed” in small cells, “on the floor next to the toilet,” with temperatures “either freezing or oppressively hot,” and receiving “at most only two small meals a day.” In Florida, detainees said they watched others get sick and then wait hours for help. In Baltimore, people spoke of losing track of time as another night passed on a chair beside an open toilet. The details differ, but the outline is the same: hold rooms operating as long-term detention, without the infrastructure to keep people safe and clean.

ICE’s reliance on hold rooms also reflects the strain on the broader detention network as arrests rise and removal operations accelerate. Transfers that once took a day can now stretch across a week. When buses are full and detention beds are booked, officers rely on these small rooms to bridge a gap that keeps widening. Critics say the solution is not to expand short-term confinement but to limit its use and strengthen alternatives, insisting that time caps must be real and enforced. Supporters of expanded enforcement counter that the system needs flexibility to manage surges and that detainees are being cared for while they await transfer or removal.

For now, the evidence points to a system where written limits are routinely exceeded. The policy that once capped stays at 12 hours was loosened to 72, and yet people in multiple cities have documented seven days or more in hold rooms, with some accounts of detentions stretching beyond 30 days. Fourteen deaths in detention this year have heightened the urgency for closer oversight, even as ICE maintains that conditions meet or exceed standards and that safety is a top priority. The lawsuits filed on August 11, 2025 and September 18, 2025 have forced the questions into federal court, where judges are weighing whether prolonged hold room custody violates constitutional protections and whether immediate steps are needed to curb overcrowding and restore access to counsel.

What happens next will shape how ICE uses hold rooms in 2025 and beyond. If courts enforce strict time limits and minimum conditions, the agency will have to adjust transfers, expand alternatives or free up detention beds to ensure people are not sleeping beside toilets for days without a shower. If the current approach stands, migrants will continue to spend nights in rooms meant for hours, and attorneys will keep filing declarations about clients they cannot find and calls they cannot complete. In the meantime, the voices from inside these rooms, from “They treat us like dogs” in Manhattan to “We’re practically kidnapped” in Florida, have made visible a corner of the immigration system that was never meant to hold people for more than a brief stop—and now does, as a matter of routine.