Congressmember Dan Goldman on Thursday morning toured the previously secretive holding cells used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement to detain immigrants in lower Manhattan.
His visit, the first by a lawmaker, came after the revelation earlier this week that, in addition to holding cells on the 10th floor of 26 Federal Plaza, ICE also was detaining people on the ninth floor — while claiming those lock-ups were not covered under a judge’s order to maintain decent conditions for people held inside of the building.
Goldman arrived unannounced and was escorted by ICE’s New York Assistant Field Officer Alberto Morales through the cells of the ninth floor, then to those on the 10th floor, and finally to the fifth floor offices where families with children are taken for check-ins and sometimes detained.
Goldman said the ninth floor cells were empty at the time of his visit.
“There was no one in there at all,” he said, speaking to reporters in the elevator, while seven recently arrested men and one woman were in cells on the 10th floor — well below the effective maximum capacity of 22 prisoners there based on the judge’s order dictating how much space each person must have.
The Democrat’s unannounced visit came three days after a Trump administration attorney conceded at a hearing related to ongoing litigation over conditions inside 10th floor holding cells that people were being detained on the floor below as well.
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security didn’t return a request for comment on the proceeding.
Last summer, after a suit from immigrant advocates describing rampant overcrowding and squalid conditions, a judge ordered ICE to dramatically restrict capacity and provide meals, clean bed mats, sanitary products and access to confidential legal calls for prolonged stays inside the building.
At the time, ICE officials had described in affidavits only four holding cells on the building’s 10th floor, which has capacity for 22 people due to the judge’s order requiring that each person have at least 50 square feet of space, which must be at least eight feet from a toilet.
Congressional Rep. Dan Goldman speaks with ICE Assistant Field Officer Alberto Morales about inspecting detention facilities inside 26 Federal Plaza, Feb. 12, 2026. Credit: Ben Fractenberg/THE CITY
But William Joyce, the deputy director of ICE’s New York Field Office, told plaintiffs’ attorneys at a deposition earlier this month that his agency was using other floors of the building, and that they didn’t believe the judge’s order applied there.
The account of his deposition — which has not been made public — came from Heather Gregorio, one of the attorneys representing the immigrants being held there, at a court hearing on Monday.
Goldman has conducted several unannounced inspections of the 10th floor holding cells since December, when he and other members of Congress gained access through a court order after months of litigation.
While federal spending bills state that members of Congress and their staffers are supposed to be able to enter any facility used by the Department of Homeland Security to “detain or otherwise house aliens” unannounced for oversight purposes, they were repeatedly barred from entering ICE facilities in New York City and across the country, before a federal court in D.C. ordered their entry.
Goldman said on prior inspections of the 10th floor that he’d asked ICE officials if immigrants were detained in other parts of the building and been told they were not.
Goldman said ICE did appear to be in compliance with capacity restrictions on the ninth and 10th floors — at least at the time of his visit.
“These court orders are not optional,” Goldman said afterward. “And unfortunately as we’ve seen it in Minneapolis and elsewhere around the country where there’s documentation of violations of court orders right, left, and center, ICE is not following the law and that is unacceptable. There must be accountability for that.”
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