ICE holds immigrants in cold, ‘filthy’ and crowded cells in California, suit says
Immigration authorities are holding newly arrested detainees in a “squalid, makeshift jail” inside a San Francisco building that has not been used to detain immigrants in decades, a federal lawsuit says.
After U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement ended a policy in June that limited temporary hold detentions to 12 hours, asylum seekers and others are being held for too long inside overcrowded holding centers like the sixth floor of 630 Sansome Street in San Francisco, according to an amended class action complaint.
With an effort to increase arrests under President Donald Trump, ICE extended the limit to 72 hours “without making changes to its operational procedures and practices necessary for longer-term incarceration consistent with constitutional requirements,” the complaint filed in San Jose federal court on Sept. 18 says.
The case is filed on behalf of four plaintiffs, including three who were detained by ICE at 630 Sansome Street. There, according to the filing, immigrants are kept in “freezing,” filthy cells that lack beds, sometimes for several nights, with the lights always turned on, resulting in sleep deprivation.
“They are forced to sleep on metal benches or directly on the floor, including next to the toilet, with nothing more than a thin plastic or foil blanket or a thin mat,” the complaint says.
Detainees also aren’t given a change of clothes; hygiene products, including soap, toothpaste and feminine products; and prescription medications, according to the complaint.
The lawsuit is challenging lengthy detentions in centers with “cruel, dangerous, and excessive conditions” as well as ICE’s practice of arresting people who show up to immigration court for their hearings.
The case is represented by the ACLU of Northern California, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, the Central American Resource Center of Northern California, and Coblentz Patch Duffy & Bass LLP. It was initially filed Aug. 1 on behalf of one plaintiff.
“The plaintiffs in this case include community members who are following the law by coming to court, only to be arrested,” Nisha Kashyap, the Racial Justice program director for the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, said in a news release.
“Coupled with the horrific conditions at 630 Sansome, these policies represent a profound breakdown of the rule of law,” Kashyap added.
The Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, ICE and agency officials are named as defendants in the lawsuit.
The DOJ referred McClatchy News’ request for comment to DHS and ICE.
In an emailed statement to McClatchy News on Sept. 21, DHS Assistant Public Affairs Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said “The ability of law enforcement to make arrests of criminal illegal aliens in courthouses is common sense.”
“It conserves valuable law enforcement resources because they already know where a target will be,” McLaughlin added. “It is also safer for our officers and the community. These illegal aliens have gone through security and been screened to not have any weapons.”
McLaughlin also said “any claim that there are subprime conditions at ICE detention centers are false,” adding that “ICE has higher detention standards than most US prisons that hold actual US citizens.”
After World War II, the building at 630 Sansome Street was used for immigration detention until it shut down in 1954 following the deaths of several Chinese immigrants, the lawsuit notes.
It reopened under Trump earlier this year, according to the filing.
The plaintiffs in the lawsuit who were detained at the center include a Guatemalan asylum seeker who was arrested by ICE after her immigration court hearing in San Francisco on July 31, a Colombian asylum seeker who attended two immigration hearings and was arrested after her second appearance on Sept. 18, and a man who is not a U.S. citizen and has lived in the U.S. for more than 30 years, the complaint says.
The woman from Colombia and the man, who was arrested during his interview with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services on Sept. 17, were detained at the ICE center at the time of the lawsuit’s filing, according to the complaint.
The man has cancer and high blood pressure and has been detained for at least 22 hours, the complaint says.
The fourth plaintiff is another Guatemalan asylum seeker, a mother of a 9-month-old baby, who “narrowly avoided arrest” at her immigration hearing in San Francisco on Sept. 11, according to the complaint.
While ICE agents waited for her outside of the courtroom, the complaint says two attorneys stepped in and “convinced” them not to arrest her because she was with her baby.
Now, she “faces an impossible choice: attend her next court hearing and potentially face immediate arrest and separation from her infant, who is still breastfeeding, or fail to appear for her hearing, receive an order of removal in absentia, and face deportation back to the dangerous conditions that she fled in the first place,” the complaint says.
The lawsuit is calling on the federal government to stop immigration courthouse arrests and longer detentions inside holding rooms, as well as for an improvement in conditions at the center.
“I did what the government asked. I showed up to court. And for that, I was treated like a criminal, and thrown into a freezing cell with no bed, no medicine, and no answers,” one of the plaintiffs said in a statement. “What happened to me at 630 Sansome was a nightmare.”
This story was originally published September 19, 2025 at 2:09 PM with the headline "ICE holds immigrants in cold, ‘filthy’ and crowded cells in California, suit says."
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