- Maryland lawmakers found empty holding rooms during an unannounced oversight visit to an ICE facility.
- A federal judge recently capped the facility’s capacity to fifty-five detainees following reports of inhumane conditions.
- Legislators expressed concerns that detainees were transferred to avoid scrutiny after the court-ordered restrictions.
(BALTIMORE, MARYLAND) — Maryland’s congressional delegation conducted an unannounced oversight visit on March 9, 2026, to the ICE Baltimore Field Office holding area in the George H. Fallon Federal Building and found all five holding rooms empty, after weeks of public scrutiny and a federal court order over detention conditions.
Senators Chris Van Hollen and Angela Alsobrooks joined Representatives Kweisi Mfume, Glenn Ivey, and Johnny Olszewski on the visit, which came days after a federal judge capped the number of people ICE can hold there at one time. Lawmakers said the sudden vacancy raised questions about where detainees were taken and whether transfers occurred to reduce scrutiny.
Department of Homeland Security and ICE officials pushed back, rejecting allegations of subprime conditions and overcrowding and pointing to their detention standards and court filings as the dispute continues in public and in court.
DHS addressed the broader criticism in a March 9 statement from a spokesperson: “Illegal aliens in custody are provided food, water, blankets, and hygiene products. ICE has higher detention standards than most U.S. prisons that hold actual U.S. citizens, including access to comprehensive medical care.”
ICE issued its own statement on March 9: “ICE remains committed to always upholding the safety and well-being of all detainees in custody.” Asked about the empty holding rooms during the lawmakers’ oversight visit, officials said they were “reviewing the court decision” from the previous Friday.
The disagreement centers on how many people the holding rooms can safely house and what standards the government must meet when people are detained there while awaiting further proceedings. U.S. District Judge Julie Rubin issued a preliminary injunction on March 6, 2026, limiting the facility to a maximum of 55 detainees at any one time.
Before that ruling, ICE claimed the five holding rooms had capacity for 226 people, a figure disputed by plaintiffs in the lawsuit. The judge’s order also required that each detainee have at least 31 square feet of personal space, that rooms be cleaned daily, and that medical screenings occur within 12 hours of entry.
Lawmakers pointed to a January 2026 viral video showing dozens of men sleeping on concrete floors with emergency foil blankets, which they cited as evidence of “inhumane” conditions. The delegation said it wanted to see the conditions firsthand and assess compliance after the March 6 order.
Concerns around the Fallon Building extended beyond crowding, lawmakers said. Legionella bacteria was discovered in the building’s water system in November 2025, and while ICE has said detainees are provided bottled water, lawmakers said they remained concerned the bacteria could pose a risk to occupants.
Van Hollen and other visiting lawmakers characterized the empty holding rooms as “convenient” and “orchestrated,” arguing that the absence of detainees during an unannounced visit undermined confidence in ICE’s assurances about routine conditions. They did not provide a headcount of detainees they expected to see during the visit, and the delegation did not report seeing any detainees elsewhere at the facility during their inspection.
DHS officials framed the court’s findings differently. In a March 10, 2026, court-related statement, officials told media outlets that the court’s determination of subprime conditions or overcrowding was “false.” They also said being in detention “is a choice,” and encouraged individuals to “take control of their departure with the CBP Home App.”
The case remains active in federal court, with the March 6 preliminary injunction setting interim requirements while the underlying claims proceed. The order also certified a class of “all persons who are now, or will be, detained” at the Baltimore facility, extending the protections beyond current detainees to future ones held in the Fallon Building holding area.
Lawmakers said class-wide relief matters because conditions in holding rooms can shift rapidly with arrests, transfers, and processing changes. They also said oversight becomes harder when detainees move quickly or are held out of public view.
Ivey, who described himself as having seen incarceration conditions in multiple roles, said the empty rooms did not ease his concerns. “I’ve been in jails as a prosecutor, as a defense lawyer. I’ve never seen anything like that,” he said, referring to the concrete slabs and lack of privacy he observed in the empty cells.
The delegation said it worried detainees had been moved to other facilities, possibly out of state, to avoid the new population limit or reduce attention during the visit. The lawmakers did not identify where they believe detainees were taken, and ICE did not provide a public accounting on March 9 of transfers connected to the Baltimore holding area.
ICE’s statement emphasized safety and compliance as it reviewed the court’s decision, without addressing the lawmakers’ characterization of the timing. DHS and ICE have argued the allegations driving the litigation misstate conditions and overlook the agency’s standards and access to care.
The visit unfolded amid broader political tensions around immigration enforcement and detention decisions affecting Maryland. President Trump ousted DHS Secretary Kristi Noem on March 5, 2026, and replaced her with Senator Markwayne Mullin, a transition lawmakers cited as contributing to a charged atmosphere around the case and federal detention policy.
Plans for expanded detention capacity elsewhere in the state also intensified scrutiny of what happens in Baltimore’s downtown holding area. DHS has plans to open a massive 1,500-person detention center in a renovated warehouse in Hagerstown (Washington County), a project that state officials have challenged in court.
Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown filed a lawsuit over the Hagerstown plan, according to the material released alongside the delegation’s visit. The delegation presented the Baltimore oversight trip as part of a broader effort to track detention conditions and accountability as detention capacity changes in the region.
Local officials in Baltimore moved on a separate track the same day, focusing on what the city can control through contracting and land-use decisions. Baltimore City Council President Zeke Cohen introduced legislation on March 9 to ban private detention centers in the city, following similar restrictions adopted in Howard and Baltimore counties.
The local measures target private detention contracting and siting, rather than federal detention authority, and they reflect a growing use of local levers to shape how detention-related facilities operate within county and city boundaries. The proposals do not directly set federal detention standards, but they can affect where certain facilities can operate and under what local conditions.
The dispute over the Fallon Building holding rooms has become a focal point because the facility sits at the intersection of federal enforcement and local oversight. The lawsuit and the March 6 order place specific operational requirements on a downtown federal facility, while city and county actions address the detention footprint beyond the courthouse and federal building complex.
For detainees, the class certification and injunction set enforceable minimums while the litigation proceeds. The order’s requirements on personal space, daily cleaning, and medical screening timing establish a baseline for how the five holding rooms operate when the facility holds people, and the detainee cap limits the number who can be kept there at once.
Lawmakers and advocates have raised concerns that transfers could blunt the effect of the new limits by shifting people to other detention sites. DHS and ICE have responded by emphasizing that they provide food, water, blankets, hygiene products, and medical care, and by disputing the court’s findings and the narrative that the facility operates in substandard or overcrowded conditions.
Public documentation of the dispute now runs through agency statements and the federal court record. DHS posts updates and statements through its DHS Newsroom, and ICE publishes agency announcements through its ICE Newsroom.
Van Hollen’s office also distributed information about the March 9 delegation visit through his official website, vanhollen.senate.gov, as lawmakers continue to press the agency on access, transfers, and compliance with the March 6 order.
Court filings and orders appear on the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland website at mdd.uscourts.gov, under the case caption D.N.N. et al. v. Liggins et al., which has become the central venue for resolving the dispute over the Baltimore holding rooms and the standards ICE must meet inside the Fallon Building.
